Using emergency trauma team activations to measure trauma activity and injury severity: 10 years of experience using an Australian major trauma centre registry.

objectivesTo describe the outcomes of Emergency Department trauma team activations over a 10-year period with respect to injury severity and hospital length of stay.

methodsThis was a retrospective study using trauma registry data at a single Major Trauma Centre in Australia. All trauma team activations and arrivals on pre-hospital major trauma (T1) protocol recorded in the trauma registry between June 2006 and July 2016 were included. The outcome of interest was major trauma, defined as an Injury Severity Score (ISS) >12 or length of stay >3 days or requiring urgent operative intervention or admission to the Intensive Care Unit following trauma.

resultsA total of 9876 hospital trauma activations were analysed from January 2006 to June 2016. Of these 53.3% were admitted as an in-patient and 16.6% were classified as having an ISS >15. Major trauma occurred in 38% of cases. With respect to hospital utilisation, patients with an ISS <16 accounted for around half of total cumulative in-patient bed-days.

conclusionsAnalysis of data from trauma team activations in ED has allowed a description of trauma activity and hospital bed day utilisation as a function of injury severity. The results confirm that those with minor trauma accounted for the vast majority of cases and around half of all hospital in-patient bed-days.