Demographic data, date of admission, planned operation and the date of operation were entered into the trauma database by the trauma coordinator, an experienced nurse whose exclusive task is to follow-up all trauma patients and optimize the pathway from admission to discharge.
Occasionally, planned delay can occur, due to the need to optimize preoperative condition or the requirement for specific instrumentation/expertise. To improve operating capacity, some patients are booked by the trauma coordinator on elective lists, following last-minute cancellations and on the emergency lists.
The trauma coordinators collected prospective data on all of the timings involved, and this was inputted daily into a database.
They will liaise with the Trauma Coordinators at each site for notification of any admission of an eligible TSCI patient to that service.
This led to the creation of the trauma coordinator role (Table 1).
Our experience is that the role of the trauma coordinator is essential.
Table 1 Defining the trauma coordinator role Trauma coordinator role Senior nurse with ward-management experience Competent to cannulate and take blood Completion of ionising radiation (medical exposure) regulations training so that X-ray requests can be completed Training in the provision of local anaesthetic blocks Limited prescribing rights (to include analgesics).
The survey was mailed to the trauma coordinator at each Level I trauma center.
First, despite efforts by the trauma registrar coordinators and investigators to identify abuse (review medical records including social work, ED, child advocacy, hospital summary and discharge notes), it is possible the research team was unable to identify and exclude all intentional injury cases based on available data.
While clear data collection protocols were provided to trauma coordinators and data registrars in the trauma facilities, the accuracy of our data was dependent upon the quality of the report submitted by the sites.
