Author: Robert Fojut

Trauma care professionals are known for their dedication and discipline — but the best trauma teams also excel at resourcefulness and creative thinking. That is why Peregrine Health Services and Trauma System News are pleased to announce the inaugural Peregrine Award for Trauma Innovation. The goal of the Peregrine Award for Trauma Innovation is to…

Trauma programs face significant resource constraints, so performance improvement (PI) efforts should focus on issues that have the greatest impact on patient outcomes. According to a new study, the most promising target for trauma PI today is pneumonia prevention. The study was conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin and published…

The first major revision of Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient in nearly a decade will be released in spring 2022. The 2022 Standards build on previous guidelines from the American College of Surgeons (ACS), and most of the changes are incremental developments. However, the new standards include several new expectations in staffing,…

The rollout timeline for the new trauma center verification standards of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS COT) was announced during the closing session of the 2021 TQIP Annual Conference. Avery Nathens, MD, MPH, PhD, medical director of ACS trauma quality programs, revealed the release date of the new standards book and…

The new trauma center verification standards of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) will likely be released in March 2022, according to Avery Nathens, MD, MPH, PhD, medical director of ACS trauma quality programs. Dr. Nathens announced the expected timeline during the opening session of the 2021 Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) Annual Conference. He…

Severely injured patients have a better chance of survival than ever before — if they make it to a trauma center. However, a significant percentage of patients with difficult-to-control bleeding still die in the field or en route to a hospital. Recently, a group of civilian and military trauma leaders proposed a new strategy for…

Trauma research in the U.S. is underfunded compared to other diseases. While efforts are underway to lobby for additional support, these efforts do not address the underlying problem that hampers trauma research funding. According to Martin Schreiber, MD, FACS, chair of the Trauma Center Association of America (TCAA), a major problem is a lack of…

Over the last decade, trauma centers have stepped up their efforts to prepare for mass shootings. But according to an expert in mass casualty response, there are several misconceptions about mass shooting events that can undercut hospital readiness. “When you talk about disasters, you have to divide them into two types — progressive events and…

Debra Kitchens has lived the full spectrum of trauma care, from running EMS calls as a paramedic to doing scene calls as a flight nurse. As manager of trauma services at Prisma Health/Upstate in Greenville, South Carolina, she is helping to build a regional trauma network while still managing a local team of trauma professionals.…

COVID-19 is having a complex impact on trauma centers. While injury rates are down worldwide, hospitals are still receiving injured patients. And in many ways the pandemic has made trauma care more complicated than ever. What have trauma programs done to maintain patient access and standards of care during the coronavirus pandemic? To find out,…