A Dangerous Gap in Trauma Care | WSJ | 10.3.07
Systems to Transfer Patients To Best-Equipped Hospitals Fall Short in Most States
Michael Rotondo, who heads the American College of Surgeons group that consults on trauma-system development, suggests that consumers who aren’t located near a Level I or II trauma center should ask if their local hospital has staffers trained in the Advanced Trauma Life Support Course, which is used to train emergency workers around the world.
How about board certified Emergency Physicians? Or are they just “staffers” and “emergency workers” that need ATLS training?
If someone walks into a rural hospital with an ax in their head, it shouldn’t take three hours to make the decision that he needs a neurosurgeon.
And it shouldn’t take three hours for a neurosurgeon to accept an ax to the head. My all time record is 17 calls in 4 hours to 10 different hospitals (including 1 level I and 2 level IIs) to get an open mandible fracture accepted. Having trauma centers is the first problem, having trauma centers available to accept patients is a whole second problem.