Monash research helps improve trauma care in England and Wales
New research highlighting the effectiveness of Victoria’s trauma service is being used to inform improvements to trauma care in England and Wales.
Professor Peter Cameron said the Monash study showed Victoria is a world leader in the provision of services to treat the severely injured.
“Victoria has a world-leading regionalised trauma service that is closely integrated with the ambulance service. For patients, it means that if you are picked up with severe injuries you will be immediately assessed and sent to an appropriate specialist trauma centre, depending on the level of care required,” Professor Cameron said.
“For this study we chose to make a comparison between the effectiveness of trauma services in Victoria and those in England and Wales.”
“Trauma services in England and Wales have not achieved the same level of integration so we expected our system would show better mortality rates and, because England and Wales collects the right sort of data, we were able to make a comparison to see if we were right.”
The study looked at mortality rates for patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
TBI is a leading cause of death and disability. Common causes include car accidents, slips and falls, sporting mishaps and assault.
“Mortality was 23 per cent in England and Wales, and 20 per cent in Victoria. But crucially, only 72 per cent of severe TBI cases were managed at a neurosurgical centre in England and Wales, compared with 86 per cent in Victoria,” Professor Cameron said.
“Head injuries require complex treatment and we found that because the Victorian system is able to send the right patient to the right hospital at the right time, mortality rates were significantly improved.”
“This may sound like common sense but it is invaluable that we have robust data that can be used to justify how trauma services and resources are organised.”
The study is now being used to support improvements to trauma care in England and Wales, based on the Victorian experience. Monash researchers are also advising interstate experts as they embark on the process of organising their trauma services.
Professor Cameron said a review of trauma and emergency services, conducted in 1999 in response to a high percentage of preventable deaths, paved the way for the state’s world-leading trauma care.
“The Department of Health and the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) have invested a large amount of resources into our trauma system and we have been able to show it is producing really good results,” Professor Cameron said.
A paper based on the research was recently published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE journal.