Impact of Trauma Volume on Emergency Department Throughput, as Seen by CT Scan Completion Times

摘要

For decades, it has been accepted that trauma patients should be seen within the "Golden Hour," the 1st hour after the onset of the out-of-hospital trauma, to reduce morbidity and mortality through early intervention. Although some contemporary studies have challenged the benefit of the Golden Hour, the literature has shown that for a severely injured patient, treatment from a Level I trauma center can help reduce mortality by up to 25 per cent. Most, if not all, trauma I centers give early treatment of trauma patients within the ED because of an increasing length of time before a critical care bed becomes available. Because issues of hospital overcrowding increase, the wait for critical care beds attributes to increased length of stay.