Trauma teams in Australia: a national survey.

BACKGROUND: Trauma teams have been associated with improved trauma patient outcomes. The present study seeks to estimate the use of trauma teams in Australian hospitals and describe their medical composition, leadership and criteria for activation.

METHODS: Australian public hospitals with more than 100 beds, an emergency department and offering surgical services were identified. A survey assessing the presence, composition and means of activation of a trauma team was mailed to the 'Director, Emergency Department' of all identified hospitals. Three months later, all hospitals were contacted by telephone to complete and verify data collection.

RESULTS: Questionnaires were distributed to 130 hospitals. After exclusion of hospitals that did not receive patients with traumatic injuries, and dedicated paediatric tertiary referral centres, 111 hospitals remained for analysis. Of these, 56% had an established trauma team, while 71% of hospitals without a trauma team claimed to have insufficient doctors to form one team. Ninety-five per cent of trauma teams were potentially activated by prehospital paramedic data (field triage). For 92% of trauma teams a combination of anatomical, physiological and mechanistic criteria were required for activation. The most common methods of mobilizing a trauma team were by dispatching a common call onto individual pagers (31%) or by paging trauma team members individually (31%). Fifty-eight per cent of trauma team leaders were emergency medicine specialists/registrars, while 8% of trauma teams were led by surgeons/registrars. Consultant surgeons were members of 23% of trauma teams and 74% of trauma teams consisted of more junior members after hours. Some form of trauma audit was engaged in by 64% of hospitals.

CONCLUSIONS: Trauma teams are yet to be utilized by many Australian hospitals that provide trauma care. Australian surgeons presently have limited leadership roles and membership in trauma teams. Trauma audit can be more widely adopted in Australian hospitals.