Severely injured blunt trauma patients should be transported directly to trauma centers.
This study examines whether transporting severely injured blunt trauma patients directly to trauma centers rather than initially to local nontrauma centers provides benefit. Researchers analyzed data for severely injured trauma patients admitted to one of eight trauma centers in the U.S. from 2004 to 2007 who met the following criteria: age >16 years, blunt mechanism of injury, hospital arrival within 6 hours of injury, systolic blood pressure <90 mm Hg or base deficit ≥6, blood transfusion within 12 hours of injury, and Abbreviated Injury Scale score ≥2 for any region of the body except the brain. Patients with severe head or spinal cord injury were excluded.
Among 1105 patients, 318 (29%) were transported initially to nontrauma centers, an…