A modified Kampala trauma score (KTS) effectively predicts mortality in trauma patients

Background: Mortality prediction in trauma patients has relied upon injury severity scoring tools focused on anatomical injury. This study sought to examine whether an injury severity scoring system which includes physiologic data performs as well as anatomic injury scores in mortality prediction. Methods: Using data collected from 18 Level I trauma centers and 51 non-trauma center hospitals in the US, anatomy based injury severity scores (ISS), new injury severity scores (NISS) were calculated as were scores based on a modified version of the physiology-based Kampala trauma score (KTS). Because pre-hospital intubation, when required, is standard of care in the US, a modified KTS was calculated excluding respiratory rate. The predictive ability of the modified KTS for mortality was compared with the ISS and NISS using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: A total of 4716 individuals were eligible for study. Each of the three scores was a statistically significant predictor of mortality. In this sample, the modified KTS significantly outperformed the ISS (AUC=0.83, 95% CI 0.81-0.84 vs. 0.77, 95% CI 0.76-0.79, respectively) and demonstrated similar predictive ability compared to the NISS (AUC=0.83, 95% CI 0.81-0.84 vs. 0.82, 95% CI 0.80-0.83, respectively). Conclusions: The modified KTS may represent a useful tool for assessing trauma mortality risk in real time, as well as in administrative data where physiologic measures are available. Further research is warranted and these findings suggest that the collection of physiologic measures in large databases may improve outcome predictio

Disparities in mortality after blunt injury: Does insurance type matter?

Background: Insurance-related outcomes disparities are well-known, but associations between distinct insurance types and trauma outcomes remain unclear. Prior studies have generally merged various insurance types into broad groups. The purpose of this study is to determine the association of specific insurance types with mortality after blunt injury.Materials and methods: Cases of blunt injury among adults aged 18-64 y with an injury severity score \u3e9 were identified using the 2007-2009 National Trauma Data Bank. Crude mortality was calculated for 10 insurance types. Multivariable logistic regression was employed to determine difference in odds of death between insurance types, controlling for injury severity score, Glasgow Coma Scale motor, mechanism of injury, sex, race, and hypotension. Clustering was used to account for possible inter-facility variations.Results: A total of 312,312 cases met inclusion criteria. Crude mortality ranged from 3.2 to 6.0% by insurance type. Private Insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Workers Compensation, and Medicaid yielded the lowest relative odds of death, while Not Billed and Self Pay yielded the highest. Compared with Private Insurance, odds of death were higher for No Fault (OR 1.25, P = 0.022), Not Billed (OR 1.77, P \u3c 0.001), and Self Pay (OR 1.77, P \u3c 0.001). Odds of death were higher for Medicare (OR 1.52, P \u3c 0.001) and Other Government (OR 1.35, P = 0.049), while odds of death were lower for Medicaid (OR 0.89, P = 0.015).Conclusions: Significant differences in mortality after blunt injury were seen between insurance types, even among those commonly grouped in other studies. Policymakers may use this information to implement programs to monitor and reduce insurance-related disparities

Disparities in mortality after blunt injury: Does insurance type matter?

BACKGROUND: Insurance-related outcomes disparities are well-known, but associations between distinct insurance types and trauma outcomes remain unclear. Prior studies have generally merged various insurance types into broad groups. The purpose of this study is to determine the association of specific insurance types with mortality after blunt injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cases of blunt injury among adults aged 18-64 years with an Injury Severity Score (ISS)>9 were identified using the 2007-2009 National Trauma Data Bank. Crude mortality was calculated for ten insurance types. Multivariable logistic regression was employed to determine difference in odds of death between insurance types, controlling for ISS, Glasgow Coma Scale motor, mechanism of injury, sex, race and hypotension. Clustering was used to account for possible inter-facility variations. RESULTS: 312,312 cases met inclusion criteria. Crude mortality ranged from 3.2-6.0% by insurance type. Private Insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Workers Compensation, and Medicaid yielded the lowest relative odds of death, while Not Billed and Self Pay yielded the highest. Compared to Private Insurance, odds of death were higher for No Fault (OR 1.25, p=0.022), Not Billed (OR 1.77, p<0.001), and Self Pay (OR 1.78, p<0.001). Odds of death were higher for Medicare (OR 1.52, p<0.001) and Other Government (OR 1.35, p=0.049), while odds of death were lower for Medicaid (OR 0.89, p=0.015). CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences in mortality after blunt injury were seen between insurance types, even among those commonly grouped in other studies. Policymakers may use this information to implement programs to monitor and reduce insurance-related disparities

Worse outcomes among uninsured general surgery patients: Does the need for an emergency operation explain these disparities?

Background: We hypothesize that lack of access to care results in propensity toward emergent operative management and may be an important factor in worse outcomes for the uninsured population. The objective of this study is to investigate a possible link to worse outcomes in patients without insurance who undergo an emergent operation.Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional analysis was performed using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) 2005-2011 dataset. Patients who underwent biliary, hernia, and colorectal operations were evaluated. Multivariate analyses were performed to assess the associations between insurance status, urgency of operation, and outcome. Covariates of age, sex, race, and comorbidities were controlled.Results: The uninsured group had greatest odds ratios of undergoing emergent operative management in biliary (OR 2.43), colorectal (3.54), and hernia (3.95) operations, P \u3c .001. Emergent operation was most likely in the 25- to 34-year age bracket, black and Hispanic patients, men, and patients with at least one comorbidity. Postoperative complications in emergencies, however, were appreciated most frequently in the populations with government coverage.Conclusion: Although the uninsured more frequently underwent emergent operations, patients with coverage through the government had more complications in most categories investigated. Young patients also carried significant risk of emergent operations with increased complication rates. Patients with government insurance tended toward worse outcomes, suggesting disparity for programs such as Medicaid. Disparity related to payor status implies need for policy revisions for equivalent health care access

Pain management for blunt thoracic trauma: A joint practice management guideline from the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma and Trauma Anesthesiology Society

Thoracic trauma is the second most prevalent nonintentional injury in the United States and is associated with significant morbidity. Analgesia for blunt thoracic trauma was first addressed by the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) with a practice management guideline published in 2005. Since that time, it was hypothesized that there have been advances in the analgesic management for blunt thoracic trauma. As a result, updated guidelines for this topic using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) framework recently adopted by EAST are presented. Five systematic reviews were conducted using multiple databases. The search retrieved articles regarding analgesia for blunt thoracic trauma from January1967 to August 2015. Critical outcomes of interest were analgesia, postoperative pulmonary complications, changes in pulmonary function tests, need for endotracheal intubation, and mortality. Important outcomes of interest examined included hospital and intensive care unit length of stay. Seventy articles were identified. Of these, 28 articles were selected to construct the guidelines. The overall risk of bias for all studies was high. The majority of included studies examined epidural analgesia. Epidural analgesia was associated with lower short-term pain scores in most studies, but the quality and quantity of evidence were very low, and no firm evidence of benefit or harm was found when this modality was compared with other analgesic interventions. The quality of evidence for paravertebral block, intrapleural analgesia, multimodal analgesia, and intercostal nerve blocks was very low as assessed by GRADE. The limitations with the available literature precluded the formulation of strong recommendations by our panel. We propose two evidence-based recommendations regarding analgesia for patients with blunt thoracic trauma. The overall risk of bias for all studies was high. The limitations with the available literature precluded the formulation of strong recommendations by our panel. We conditionally recommend epidural analgesia and multimodal analgesia as options for patients with blunt thoracic trauma, but the overall quality of evidence supporting these modalities is low in trauma patients. These recommendations are based on very low-quality evidence but place a high value on patient preferences for analgesia. These recommendations are in contradistinction to the previously published Practice Management Guideline published by EAST

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on injury prevalence and pattern in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Region: a multicenter study by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, Washington, DC

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects on healthcare systems and society with resultant impact on trauma systems worldwide. This study evaluates the impact the pandemic has had in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Region as compared with similar months in 2019.Design A retrospective multicenter study of all adult trauma centers in the Washington, DC region was conducted using trauma registry data between January 1, 2019 and May 31, 2020. March 1, 2020 through May 31, 2020 was defined as COVID-19, and January 1, 2019 through February 28, 2020 was defined as pre-COVID-19. Variables examined include number of trauma contacts, trauma admissions, mechanism of injury, Injury Severity Score, trauma center location (urban vs. suburban), and patient demographics.Results There was a 22.4% decrease in the overall incidence of trauma during COVID-19 compared with a 3.4% increase in trauma during pre-COVID-19. Blunt mechanism of injury decreased significantly during COVID-19 (77.4% vs. 84.9%, p&lt;0.001). There was no change in the specific mechanisms of fall from standing, blunt assault, and motor vehicle crash. The proportion of trauma evaluations for penetrating trauma increased significantly during COVID-19 (22.6% vs. 15.1%, p&lt;0.001). Firearm-related and stabbing injury mechanisms both increased significantly during COVID-19 (11.8% vs. 6.8%, p&lt;0.001; 9.2%, 6.9%, p=0.002, respectively).Conclusions and relevance The overall incidence of trauma has decreased since the arrival of COVID-19. However, there has been a significant rise in penetrating trauma. Preparation for future pandemic response should include planning for an increase in trauma center resource utilization from penetrating trauma.Level of evidence Epidemiological, level III