Study Finds Severely-injured Patients are Undertriaged in the U.S.

According to the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma, patients with severe injuries should be treated at level-one or level-two trauma centers. However, a recent study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that one out of three major trauma patients in 2010 actually received their treatments at lower-level trauma centers or non-trauma centers. Furthermore, the study found that 34 percent of all major trauma patients are undertriaged; with more than 40 percent of undertriaged patients diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. “Previous studies have found that patients treated at level one trauma centers have a 25 percent lower risk of death than those treated at non-trauma centers,” said the study’s lead investigator. “However, we didn’t know how many seriously injured people in the United States were not receiving definitive care at higher level trauma centers until now.” A major trauma patient is commonly defined as one with an injury-severity score of 16 or above on a scale of one (minor) to 75 (unsurvivable). There were an estimated 169,523 major-trauma patients in 2010 whose level of care was known, and 57,609 were undertriaged. To read more about this study, click here.