Building capacity for ATLS trauma education: role of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Objectives: Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) focuses on care of injured patients in the first hour of resuscitation. Expanded demand for courses has led to a concurrent need for new instructors. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants (NPs/PAs) work on trauma services and duties include patient, staff, and outreach education.

The impact of brief team communication, leadership and team behavior training on ad hoc team performance in trauma care settings.

Background: Communication breakdowns and care coordination problems often cause preventable adverse patient care events, which can be especially acute in the trauma setting, in which ad hoc teams have little time for advanced planning. Existing teamwork curricula do not address the particular issues associated with ad hoc emergency teams providing trauma care.

Methods: Ad hoc trauma teams completed a preinstruction simulated trauma encounter and were provided with instruction on appropriate team behaviors and team communication.

Pulmonary contusions and critical care management in thoracic trauma.

Many victims of thoracic trauma require ICU care and mechanical ventilatory support. Pressure and volume-limited modes assist in the prevention of ventilator-associated lung injury. Ventilator-associated pneumonia is a significant cause of posttraumatic morbidity and mortality.

Surgeon information transfer and communication: factors affecting quality and efficiency of inpatient care.

Objective: To determine the nature of surgeon information transfer and communication (ITC) errors that lead to adverse events and near misses. To recommend strategies for minimizing or preventing these errors.

Summary Background Data: Surgical hospital practice is changing from a single provider to a team-based approach.

Maximizing reimbursement from trauma response fees (UB-92: 68X) - lessons learned from a hospital comparison.

Background: The trauma response fee (UB-92:68x) recently has been approved, to be used by hospitals to cover expenses resulting from continuous trauma team availability. These charges may be made by designated trauma centers for all defined trauma patients when notification has been received before arrival (eligible pt). This study compares two trauma centers' performance in collecting this fee help define methodologies that can enhance reimbursement.

Predictors of educational outcome: factors impacting performance on a standardized clinical evaluation.

Background: To improve student skills specific to the evaluation of radiology studies during a required clerkship in surgery for 4th-year medical students, we initiated a self-study CD-ROM educational module midway through 2000-2001. We hypothesized that student performance would improve after implementation of this module and identified factors that predicted student performance.

Materials And Methods: Students (n = 98) chose one of two hospital sites for a clerkship that focuses on the care of acutely ill surgical patients.