[Interdisciplinary shock room management: personnel, equipment and spatial logistics in 3 trauma centers in Europe]

To analyse common and divergent features of staff-related, equipmental and spatial/logistical concepts of three large trauma centers of highest health care level.

The health care mandate as well as the staff management, the organisational and the constructional-spacial structure of trauma room diagnostics and therapy of the trauma centers of the Universities of Leiden and Munich (Innenstadt) and the Zentralklinikum Augsberg are described. In particular the technical equipment and the process of the radiological diagnostic procedures in the trauma room are outlined.

Staff availability and basic technical equipment of the trauma rooms are comparable between the three hospitals. Divergent concepts exist concerning the complexity of the initial radiologic examination protocols. Spacial connection and importance of computed tomography are also discussed controversially. Urgent interventional procedures are increasingly performed within the trauma room. Magnetic-resonance-tomography does not play a role in early care from multiple injured patients.

Trauma centers have to meet certain personnel and technical prerequisites to guarantee a temporally optimised care for multiple injured patients. Differences between the three centers concerning the logistic sequence and the radiologic examination techniques used are mainly due to variable emphasis put on CT in the initial phase of patient care.