Talk:Trauma center
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(copied from Talk:Emergency room
I also think that there is a need to have a seperate entry for trauma center. All trauma centers are emergency rooms but not all emergency rooms are trauma centers. I remember, from my EMT training that there are different levels of trauma centers as well but do not remember them. I also remember that at Denver General (a trauma center that was used as an example in my EMT class and located in Denver, Colorado) that you have something like a 90% survival rate if you still have a pulse after reaching their trauma center from suffering trauma to the heart. In other words: if you were to be stabbed through the heart, something that is almost always fatal, in Denver General's trauma center there would be a 90% chance that they could repair the damage. (My memory of the actual percent comes from a nine year old memory and as such I don't feel comfortable using it in the actual entry.)
I also believe that a trauma center entry should contain the various levels of care that each level of a trauma center is able to provide care for, the needed staff to support that level of trauma center, and the various other hospital services that are required for that care beyond the trauma center. For example: a burn unit is required to further the care that a trauma center starts on a burn victim; a quarantine area is needed to even treat someone infected by a particularly nasty contagious disease like smallpox (as well as a micro-biology lab, flaming air conditionaing exhaust systems (the exhausted air must get hot enough to destroy any possible microbes), etc.), a hazardous materials unit is required to treat exposure to some of the more nasty chemicals (possibly terrorist weapons) as the staff needs to be decontaminated after they treat the patient (hydrofluoric acid is skin soluable and may even permeate latex gloves), etc..
Tres (please email me if you make a comment at class5@pacbell.net)
- If there is someone who can find a text source for the definition, either from an EMT class or something similar, that would be helpful. And just a pedantic FYI, Denver General was renamed to Denver Health Medical Center. Kerowyn 23:38, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] History
I think the drive and experience to establish trauma centers came out of the wartime experience in Vietnam. The concept of the Trauma Golden Hour was developed out of military trauma care in the Vietnam conflict. That was the idea that the best survival rates in trauma cases happen when the patient is gotten to an operating room in the first hour post-injury. It also created new tools like Military Anti-shock Trousers (MAST pants) that are used in the civilian realm today to combat blood loss. This experience led to a system of federal grants that established aeromedical helicopter service in many parts of the United States. I don't have anything written to support this. It's just my recollection. Your research might prove this or define me as needing to do more reading on the topic. User:David Jordan
