Articles: trauma.
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Second victim syndrome (SVS) is described as when healthcare providers encounter significant moral distress after traumatic patient care events. Although broadly recognized in medicine, this remains underrecognized in surgery, and no systemic approaches exist to mitigate potential harms of SVS among surgeons. When SVS is left unaddressed, surgeons not only suffer personal psychological harm but their ability to care for future patients can also be compromised. The aim was to examine surgeons' perceptions and attitudes regarding mitigation of SVS. ⋯ Surgeons agreed that healthcare organizations have a moral imperative to assist surgeons in navigating the psychosocial impacts of SVS after adverse surgical outcomes. The success of mitigation strategies was viewed as ethically relevant to patients and surgeons and dependent on the culture, tenor, and tone of the process.
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Nearly 30 million, mostly rurally located Americans lack timely access to level I or II trauma center care, resulting in inefficient resource use and potentially preventable death. Although significant progress has been made in the care of the injured patient during the last few decades, rural trauma patients continue to face significant challenges in accessing high-quality trauma care with resultant outcomes disparities and increased expenditures associated with potentially avoidable interfacility transfers. ⋯ Although telehealth has been used in trauma with some success, it remains underused. Members of a 2023 American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Spotlight Session on the role of teletrauma present an introduction to the applications, potential benefits, and future directions for telehealth use in trauma care.
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Collecting patient-reported outcomes in a systematic fashion is important to understand recovery trajectories and compare performance between different services and fields of care. These outcomes can be collected through a variety of means, but studies comparing different follow-up methods in patients with a variety of injury types are scarce. This study aimed to compare follow-up data from three injury registries to quantify patient preference for telephone versus online follow-up, determine factors associated with choosing online follow-up, and compare response rates based on the patient's preferred follow-up method. ⋯ While follow-up preference and completion were higher for telephone-based follow-ups, the findings suggest a patient's preference for completing post-injury follow-ups differs according to the type of injury they sustained, and that allowing patients a choice of their preferred follow-up method is important. The variety of follow-up methods offered should therefore reflect the needs of different patient groups, which may allow for the development of algorithms or workflow processes. Directing certain patients towards a particular follow-up method could deliver higher and more efficient follow-up rates.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Feb 2025
Novel application of latent class analysis to outcome assessment in traumatic brain injury with multiple injury subtypes or poly-TBI.
The aim of this study was to stratify poly-traumatic brain injury (poly-TBI) patterns into discrete classes and to determine the association of these classes with mortality and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (WLST). ⋯ Distinct poly-TBI classes were associated with increased in-hospital mortality and WLST. Further research with larger datasets will allow for more comprehensive poly-TBI class definitions and outcomes analysis.
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Recent evidence suggests that frailty may be a more reliable measure than age to predict outcomes following trauma. Frailty leads to prolonged hospitalisation and increased burden on the hospital system in older patients. The aim of this study is to review the prevalence of frailty in our trauma patients and the association of frailty with hospital-based and twelve-month outcomes. ⋯ After adjusting for confounding factors, frailty is associated with nearly five times the increase in odds of a discharge to further inpatient care. Long term outcomes are also significantly poorer for patients with frailty. Identifying frailty on admission may help outcomes by targeting this patient group and optimising healthcare resource usage.