To Trauma or Not to Trauma

[tootall]

What types of patients do you feel need to go to trauma? So often we go to Cooper for the patient to only be triaged to the ER. What are your thoughts and opinions on going to Trauma?

[opsoverkill]

Thats a fine line there!!! Cooper puts out guidelines of which Pt should been considered for the trauma center and when you get there they triage to the ER. It seems that the Trauma admitting Nurses have their own guidelines. It is all about your assessment. I believe the Cooper guidelines are OK and thats about it. I use it as a Red flag for my patient Then during my assessment determine if he/she would benefit with that type of interventions. The best teacher I had was by doing. I have brought hundreds of people to trauma. And hundreds more that were triaged back to the ER. And have spent countless hours watching Trauma Alerts with my time spent with Camden EMS. It a tough call but hey If I wanted to make a error it would be the error of giving to much care then not enough!!!!!.

Side not Totall it is Ems Branch Director not Manager.

[tootall]

Good eye on that I didn't even notice what Web Boss gave as my title...I will have him change it.

Thanks

[WebBoss]

* Has been corrected. I'm not even sure how I made that mistake.

[opsoverkill]

Beating everone to the punchline!!!!!

It my be One Eye but its a good one!!!! LOL

[1900]

Its all about your abilities and experience. If your border line about going. GO..so what if they triage to the ER, if they get worse atleast they are there and only need to be wheeled over. If they are at LMC or MHBC its gonna take alot longer and alot more to get them to the table...

Im not saying take everyone to Trauma, but for those true broder line Pt.'s air on the side of caution with the Pt.'s interest at mind.

[wood6276]

opsoverkill said:

Thats a fine line there!!! Cooper puts out guidelines of which Pt should been considered for the trauma center and when you get there they triage to the ER. It seems that the Trauma admitting Nurses have their own guidelines. It is all about your assessment. I believe the Cooper guidelines are OK and thats about it. I use it as a Red flag for my patient Then during my assessment determine if he/she would benefit with that type of interventions. The best teacher I had was by doing. I have brought hundreds of people to trauma. And hundreds more that were triaged back to the ER. And have spent countless hours watching Trauma Alerts with my time spent with Camden EMS. It a tough call but hey If I wanted to make a error it would be the error of giving to much care then not enough!!!!!.

Side not Totall it is Ems Branch Director not Manager.

I am not to sure of coopers guidelines cause I have dealt mostly with Helene fuld but I believe trauma centers pretty much have the same guide lines but in regards to trauma not to trauma I agree with the statement that was made above "If I wanted to make a error it would be the error of giving to much care then not enough!!!!!." this is very true in regards to patient care because I would rather see a patient get transfered from a trauma unit to an ER rather then wasting precious time (the golden Hour) transferring a pt to a trauma center cause cause i underestimated injuries

[Anger Management]

Here is a couple of helpful links on New Jersey State Trauma Guidelines.

www.state.nj.us/health/ems/trmactr.htm

nj.gov/health/ems/guideline.shtml