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Role of Trauma Score in Triage of Mass Casualties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Howard R. Champion
Affiliation:
From theGeorge Washington University Hospital, Washington DC, USA. Supported in part by the National Center for Health Services Research, grant R 18 HS 02559; and the Naval Medical Research and Development Command and office of Naval Research, Contract N00014-80-C-0872.
William J. Sacco
Affiliation:
From theGeorge Washington University Hospital, Washington DC, USA. Supported in part by the National Center for Health Services Research, grant R 18 HS 02559; and the Naval Medical Research and Development Command and office of Naval Research, Contract N00014-80-C-0872.

Extract

The development of emergency medical services (EMS) systems in the United States, incorporating various levels of sophistication in prehospital care and echelons of capability in hospital resource availability, has brought new connotations to the word “triage” (sorting).

Heretofore, triage consisted entirely of estimating treatment needs so that prioritized transfer of patients could be made to hospitals. The decision is no longer binary, since the introduction of Trauma Centers requires the triage decision maker to not only decide which patient first, but also which patient to which hospital. Clear cut decision rules for this process applied to routine civilian emergency medical practice have yet to emerge.

Type
Part I: Research-Education-Organization
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

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References

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