Consensus recommendations for acute trauma care & outcomes in LMICs from the transdisciplinary research, advocacy & implementation network for trauma in India.

Background & objectives Injuries profoundly impact global health, with substantial deaths and disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper presents strategic consensus from the Transdisciplinary Research, Advocacy, and Implementation Network for Trauma in India (TRAIN Trauma India) symposium, advocating for enhanced, system-level trauma care to address this challenge. Methods Five working groups conducted separate literature reviews on pre-hospital trauma care, in-hospital trauma resuscitation and training, trauma systems, trauma registries, and India's Towards Improving Trauma Care Outcomes (TITCO) registry. Using a Delphi approach, the TRAIN Trauma India Symposium generated consensus statements and recommendations for interventions to streamline trauma care and reduce preventable trauma mortality in India and LMICs. Experts prioritized interventions based on cost and difficulty. Results An expert panel agreed on four pre-hospital consensus statements, eight hospital resuscitation consensus statements, six system-level consensus statements, and six trauma registry consensus statements. The expert panel recommended six pre-hospital interventions, four hospital resuscitation interventions, nine system-level interventions, and seven trauma registry interventions applicable to the Indian context. Of these, 14 interventions were ranked as low cost/low difficulty, five high cost/low difficulty, five low cost/high difficulty, and three high cost/high difficulty. Interpretation & conclusions This consensus underscores the urgent need for integrated and efficient trauma systems to reduce preventable mortality, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive care that includes community engagement and robust pre-hospital and acute hospital trauma care pathways. It highlights the critical role of inclusive, system-wide approaches, from enhancing pre-hospital care and in-hospital resuscitation to implementing effective trauma registries to improve outcomes and streamline care across contexts.

Dispatch accuracy of physician-staffed emergency medical services in trauma care in south-east Norway: a retrospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: Selection of incidents and accurate identification of patients that require assistance from physician-staffed emergency medical services (P-EMS) remain essential. We aimed to evaluate P-EMS availability, the underlying criteria for dispatch, and the corresponding dispatch accuracy of trauma care in south-east Norway in 2015, to identify areas for improvement. METHODS: Pre-hospital data from emergency medical coordination centres and P-EMS medical databases were linked with data from the Norwegian Trauma Registry (NTR). Based on a set of conditions (injury severity, interventions performed, level of consciousness, incident category), trauma incidents were defined as complex, warranting P-EMS assistance, or non-complex. Incident complexity and P-EMS involvement were the main determinants when assessing the triage accuracy. Undertriage was adjusted for P-EMS availability and response and transport times. RESULTS: Among 19,028 trauma incidents, P-EMS were involved in 2506 (13.2%). The range of overtriage was 74-80% and the range of undertriage was 20-32%. P-EMS readiness in the event of complex incidents ranged from 58 to 70%. The most frequent dispatch criterion was "Police/fire brigade request immediate response" recorded in 4321 (22.7%) of the incidents. Criteria from the groups "Accidents" and "Road traffic accidents" were recorded in 10,875 (57.2%) incidents, and criteria from the groups "Transport reservations" and "Unidentified problem" in 6025 (31,7%) incidents. Among 4916 patient pathways in the NTR, 681 (13.9%) could not be matched with pre-hospital data records. CONCLUSIONS: Both P-EMS availability and dispatch accuracy remain suboptimal in trauma care in south-east Norway. Dispatch criteria are too vague to facilitate accurate P-EMS dispatch, and pre-hospital data is inconsistent and insufficient to provide basic data for scientific research. Future dispatch criteria should focus on the care aspect of P-EMS. Better tools for both dispatch and incident handling for the emergency medical coordination centres are essential. In general, coordination, standardisation, and integration of existing data systems should enhance the quality of trauma care and increase patient safety.

Trends in trauma: a rural experience.

In last 20 years a progressive increase in the cases of road traffic accidents is seen in the institution. In this study efforts have been made to study epidemiology of trauma & how to help the trauma victims in a better way. To study the changing trends in incidence & presentation of trauma victims. To recommend preventive measures based on the analysis. The present study was carried out in MGIMS, Sewagram, Wardha from 2001 to 2003. For this study which is retrospective and prospective, a total of 986 cases of surgical trauma were studied. Present study showed that in this rural area accidents account for maximum trauma admissions & major trauma only in 20 %. Out of 986 patients, 78.8 % required repair of wounds, 3.8 % required exploratory laparotomy and 16.3 % had orthopedic interventions. Overall mortality rate was 2.9 %. It was found that general care in wards was good in terms of trauma results of rural areas. These results may vary when compared with specialized trauma centers in cities; however after a period of few years cost effectiveness of trauma centers in terms of benefits needs an assessment*.