Factors affecting trauma center utilization in Illinois

The Illinois Trauma System has served as a prototype for many of the advanced emergency medical services systems developed during the past decade. The Illinois Trauma Study uses a cross-sectional research design to assess the trauma patient utilization patterns at hospitals in Illinois. Data were collected from 33 Trauma Centers and 43 nonsystem hospitals for the time interval July 1973-June 1974. Results indicated that 45.5 per cent of patients admitted with specified trauma conditions were hospitalized at Trauma Centers. When adjustment is made for differences in the size of hospitals, a 50 per cent excess in patient capture is found at Trauma Centers. This excess utilization found in Trauma Centers for this sample of trauma victims was not found among all patients admitted to these hospitals. Factors found to be associated with high Trauma Center use are race (high use among nonwhites), injury severity, evening admission to hospital and vehicular injury. Also, approximately two thirds of trauma patients that were admitted to intensive care units or transferred from other hospitals were hospitalized at Trauma Centers.