Child car seat safety programs rely on personal contact and one-on-one education. COVID-19 has made this “high-touch” model unfeasible. In response, injury prevention leaders have adapted car seat distribution and fitting programs to social distancing requirements. “When the pandemic hit, we had to cancel all in-person car seat checks,” said Gina Duchossois, MS, injury prevention…
Author: Robert Fojut
Trauma nurses work every day with complex patients whose lives are on the line. They have to stay on their feet, keep up with constant changes in policy and practice, and deal with extremes of emotion on almost a daily basis. Given the demands of the profession, how do successful trauma nurses manage to build…
Trauma volumes and injury types changed significantly for most hospitals during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most trauma centers saw an overall reduction in trauma cases as a result of work closures and stay-at-home orders. At the same time, some trauma leaders reported increases in domestic, recreational, and pediatric trauma and specific mechanisms…
COVID-19 has made it harder for many trauma programs to maintain compliance with the verification standards of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). In a recent webinar, the ACS clarified its expectations around Orange Book compliance during the pandemic. The webinar — “COVID-19 Impact on Trauma Center Verification” — was hosted by Megan Hudgins, a…
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,…
Italy is the first Western nation to experience the full impact of coronavirus disease. The pandemic is stretching the country’s ability to care for older adults and patients with serious underlying medical conditions. But how is COVID-19 affecting systems of care for trauma patients? To find out, I asked trauma professionals in Italy how the…
Trauma patients who received cold-stored whole blood as their initial blood product were less likely to die in the trauma bay than patients who received standard blood component therapy, according to a new study published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. The use of whole blood in initial resuscitation did not increase…
Results from a large prehospital care study show that patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) benefit significantly from four simple field interventions. The study validates the use of aggressive measures to prevent or treat hypoxia, hyperventilation and hypotension in TBI patients. The Excellence in Prehospital Injury Care (EPIC) study was led by a team…
Blunt abdominal injury is the third most common cause of trauma mortality in children. It is also the most common unrecognized fatal injury in the pediatric population. To manage these patients effectively, physicians must be very familiar with children’s response to abdominal trauma, recognize important sensory cues and avoid common pitfalls. Yet most injured children…
The Orange Book encourages trauma providers to minimize the use of ionizing radiation for pediatric patients. Five recent studies that weigh the risks and benefits of imaging utilization could help trauma teams reduce CT use for injured children. The studies were analyzed by the staff of JournalFeed, a website that provides daily peer-reviewed summaries of…