Current trauma team activation processes at Canadian trauma centres: A national survey.

Background: Trauma team activation (TTA) allows the provision of specialized and timely care to improve outcomes for severely injured patients. Limited information is available on the current state of TTA in Canadian trauma centres (TC). Study objectives were to describe TTA processes, data and reports, along with the challenges and successes from a national perspective.

Multidisciplinary in-situ simulation to evaluate a rare but high-risk process at a level 1 trauma centre: the “Mega-Sim” approach.

Multidisciplinary simulation has been used to successfully teach crisis resource management in operating room and emergency department settings. This article describes a “Mega-Sim” approach using an in-situ simulation that moves among multiple hospital departments to enhance multidisciplinary training and assess institutional response to a rare but high-risk event: trauma in a pregnant patient. It appears that a Mega-Sim can be used to identify systems issues, increase medical knowledge and improve perceptions of teamwork and communication within and among hospital departments.

Data capture and communication during transfers to definitive care in an inclusive trauma system.

Introduction: Background trauma survivors in rural areas transferred to urban centers have higher mortality than trauma patients admitted directly to urban centers. Transfer data in trauma registries is important for injury control. Prehospital and early physiologic data may reflect processes of pre-hospital care.

Are we failing our rural communities? Motor vehicle injury in British Columbia, Canada, 2001-2007.

In Canada, stratification by geographic area or socio-economic status remains relatively rare in national and provincial reporting and surveillance for injury prevention and trauma care. As injuries are known to affect some populations more than others, a more nuanced understanding of injury risk may in turn inform more effective prevention policy. In this study we assessed rates of hospitalization and death from motor vehicle collisions (MVC) in British Columbia (BC) by socio-economic status (SES) and by rural and urban status between 2001 and 2007.

Access to trauma systems in Canada.

Background: Trauma is a leading cause of morbidity, potential years of life lost and health care expenditure in Canada and around the world. Trauma systems have been established across North America to provide comprehensive injury care and to lead injury control efforts. We sought to describe the current status of trauma systems in Canada and Canadians' access to acute, multidisciplinary trauma care.

A population-based analysis of injury-related deaths and access to trauma care in rural-remote Northwest British Columbia.

Background: Injury rates and injury mortality rates are generally higher in rural and remote communities compared with urban jurisdictions as has been shown to be the case in the rural-remote area of Northwest (NW) British Columbia (BC). The purpose of study was to identify: (1) the place and timing of death following injury in NW BC, (2) access to and quality of local trauma services, and (3) opportunities to improve trauma outcomes.

Methods: Quantitative data from demographic and geographic databases, the BC Trauma Registry, Hospital discharge abstract database, and the BC Coroner's Office, along with qualitative data from chart reviews of selected major trauma cases, and interviews with front-line trauma care providers were collated and analyzed for patients sustaining injury in NW BC from April 2001 to March 2006.