ArticleThe western journal of emergency medicine2026
A Quality Improvement Campaign Reduces Head and Cervical Spine Imaging in Low-risk Trauma Patients.
Article in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionWhile computed tomography (CT) is invaluable for detecting life-threatening injuries in the emergency department (ED), the literature shows increasing use of head CT and cervical spine CT in low-risk trauma patients without a corresponding rise in injuries identified. These low-yield exams expose patients to avoidable radiation, increase costs, and contribute to inefficiencies in already overburdened EDs. In this study we evaluated the impact of a multimodal quality improvement (QI) campaign to reduce the use of head and cervical spine CT in low-risk trauma patients.
methodsThis prospective QI intervention involved two EDs within one healthcare network: an academic trauma center and a community hospital. We collected data on baseline CT use for six months, followed by a 23-month intervention period. Primary outcomes were monthly rates of low-risk trauma head and cervical spine CT per 100 ED patients; secondary outcome was the rate of all-cause CT use per 100 ED patients. We plotted rates over time using u-charts with mean-shift lines. Pre- and post-shift differences were summarized as rate ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals, compared using the Poisson test.
resultsUse of head CT for low-risk trauma decreased from 5.00 to 4.01 per 100 patients at the academic site (RR = 0.80, 95% CI, 0.75-0.86, P < .001) and from 6.64 to 5.12 per 100 patients at the community site (RR 0.77, 95% CI, 0.73-0.82, P < .001). Use of cervical spine CT for low-risk trauma decreased from 3.36 to 2.83 per 100 patients at the academic site (RR = 0.84, 95% CI, 0.78-0.91, P < .001) and from 4.31 to 3.49 at the community site (RR = 0.81, 95% CI, 0.75-0.87, P < .001). All-cause CT use decreased at the academic site from 53.06 to 47.91 CT exams per 100 patients [RR = 0.90, 95% CI, 0.89-0.92, P < .001] but remained unchanged at the community site.
conclusionA structured quality improvement campaign led to a significant reduction in the use of head and cervical spine CT in low-risk trauma patients. These findings provide a framework for promoting evidence-based imaging practice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.