SPMC Trauma Center impresses DOH inspectors

Prevention is always cheaper than hospitalization.

The center’s success relies on a set of protocols laid out by its Five Mortality Busters. The five are: 1. Trauma team activation, 2. Red blanket protocol, 3.Massive transfusion protocol, 4. Surgical ICU policy, and 5. Early Ambulatory Surgery for Trauma and ER Resuscitation.

Most expansive is the trauma team activation the moment a subject is brought in as an emergency trauma and critical care subject.

In the trauma team activation, which SPMC started implementing in 2024, the team is composed of a Trauma fellow/senior resident, a Trauma Emergency Department (ED) rotator/intermediate or junior resident, an ED senior resident, an ED charge/primary nurse, an ED secondary nurse, a Scribe nurse, an ED technician/nursing aid, a Clinical pharmacist, a Radiology technician, a Respiratory therapist, a Medical technologist, a Blood Bank representative, Social services, Security, Anesthesiology senior resident, Emergency Radiology senior resident, an OR charge nurse, and a Surgical Intensive Care Unit (Sicu) charge nurse.

A Red Blanket protocol is an emergency trauma-care process used in hospitals to rapidly transfer critically ill or haemodynamically unstable patients, or patients whose blood pressure is too low, their circulation is failing, or vital signs are showing that the body is in shock, from the emergency department (ED) straight to the operating theater with as few delays as possible.

The trauma team is key to all four other mortality busters.