New Trauma Management Research Centre Launches
The Trauma Management HTC is a new UK-wide organisation, run from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the largest trauma facility in the EU. It is set up to be a catalyst to “pull” new treatments in trauma into use. The launch event was held last month at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where the speakers highlighted some of the challenges with trauma treatment today and outlined areas to work on.
Trauma is sometimes overlooked as a “disease” and this event really highlighted the need for excellent care. In the western world, it is the leading cause of death for people under 40. In the UK alone, there are 16,000 deaths per year, worldwide the figure is 5.8 million people every year. Trauma care costs £ 3.5 Billion each year just in the direct cost of treatment and much more if you consider the long-term cost of disability.
There are some great articles about learning the lessons from military front-line medicine, but they tend to ignore the fact that in a modern military operating theatre there might be nine consultant surgeons in theatre –in the civilian world there are multiple trauma centres and this level of human resource is clearly not going to be the solution. Improvement goes right from immediate care through to recovery and rehabilitation.
From the Celox perspective, if you can keep more blood in the patient, you should improve the proportion who develop the lethal triad of acidosis, hypothermia and coagulopathy and have a chance of reducing the organ and system damage. Helixmedix, rapid response cars and equipment such as haemostatic dressings are a part of the whole. We wish the new HTC every success in its challenge to improve results in trauma care.
