Modifying Trauma Team Activation Criteria to Increase Rates of Appropriate Triage: A Retrospective Study

Area of Science:

• Trauma Surgery
• Emergency Medicine
• Healthcare Quality Improvement

Background:

• Trauma Centers face challenges with optimal trauma team activation criteria, leading to mistriage.
• Suboptimal overtriage rates at an institution prompted a modification of existing trauma team activation criteria.

Purpose of the Study:

• To retrospectively evaluate triage patterns before and after implementing modified trauma team activation criteria.
• To assess if modified criteria improve appropriate triage and reduce overtriage without increasing undertriage.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of triage patterns using the Standardized Trauma Assessment Tool.
• Comparison of appropriate triage, overtriage, and undertriage rates pre- and post-criteria modification.
• Statistical analysis with an alpha level of 0.05.

Main Results:

• Modified criteria significantly increased appropriate triage from 74.7% to 79.4% (p < 0.01).
• Overtriage rates decreased significantly from 57.0% to 45.7% (p < 0.001).
• Undertriage rates showed no significant change (3.2% to 4.9%, p = 0.05).

Conclusions:

• Simplified, modified trauma team activation criteria effectively decreased overtriage.
• The modifications improved appropriate triage rates without a significant increase in undertriage.
• Findings support the simplification of trauma team activation criteria to enhance triage accuracy.