Comprehensive regional trauma/Emergency Medical Services (EMS) delivery systems: The United States experience

Abstract

Abstract The early 1970's, as an outgrowth of the American military experience, several pioneer regional trauma/EMS programs showed the way for better planning, organization, and resource deployment for trauma/EMS systems in the civilian community. The experience of the mid and late 1970's has brought an even wider implementation and modeling of trauma/EMS care systems with identification of specific patient problems, designation of trauma service centers, development of protocols, and professional teams on a regionwide basis. Currently, the acceptance of regionalized systems of care for trauma makes it a potentially manageable disease with greater prospect for developing even better systems of trauma care and control in the 1980's. The progressive impact on improving trauma care for this nation will in large part be due to the continued planning and development of regional trauma/EMS systems which have as a key focus the designation of an appropriate limited number of trauma service centers for geographic regions and the nation . There should be little question today that hospitals having extensive experience with injured patients offer better care to these patients than hospitals receiving only an occasional trauma patient. Mortality and morbidity rates are lower in more experienced hospitals where interdisciplinary teams provide coordinated resuscitation, evaluation, and definitive operative management. The skills and teamwork employed in this complex task are improved by practice and repetition, which come only with a large volume of injured patients .