Accident-injury organization: Canadian overview

Trauma from motor vehicle accidents is a major health-care problem, resulting in enormous economic losses to the country, and is second only to heart disease as a reason for hospitalization in Canada. Funding fro research and accident-injury programs is critically low. National and provincial trauma registries must be developed to provide data that can be used appropriately to plan and monitor the strategy of accident health-care and prevention programs. Manitoba, which has in place a trauma registry, has a province-wide trauma system comprising two comprehensive trauma units and seven regional centres located strategically in the catchment areas of the major centres. A comparison of the performance of this system with that of hospitals in Baltimore has shown that the Manitoba system provides an equal level of care. The author recommends that a trauma system be established that a trauma system be established in regions of one to two million population. Each region should have one to three comprehensive trauma services and a number of regional trauma services, each strategically located. With appropriate funding for trauma care, the proposed system would pay for itself.