Evaluating the time to surgery for low severity trauma patients within a trauma quality improvement program

Area of Science:

• Trauma Surgery
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Public Health

Background:

• Low-severity trauma may be disproportionately overlooked in quality improvement initiatives.
• Inequity in trauma care can impact healthcare providers and communities.
• This study focuses on common, low-severity injuries needing non-urgent surgery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define and test common, low-severity injuries requiring operative intervention.
• To analyze variations in the delivery of care for these injuries.
• To establish a baseline for quality indicators in trauma care.

Main Methods:

• Reviewed a regional trauma registry to identify diagnostic groups.
• Applied selection criteria to identify appropriate low-severity injuries.
• Analyzed patient data over a 10-year period for volume and time-to-surgery.

Main Results:

• 3213 single-injury events across five diagnostic groups met criteria.
• Simple forearm fractures were most common (32.4%); supracondylar fractures in children (65.9%).
• Median time from arrival to surgery varied: tibial fractures (45.4h) longest, supracondylar fractures (10.0h) shortest.

Conclusions:

• Variations in care processes for different low-severity trauma groups are measurable.
• These measurable variations provide a foundation for developing quality indicators.
• Further work can establish benchmarking for trauma care delivery.