Changes in Preventable Death Rates and Traumatic Care Systems in Korea

PURPOSE: This study was performed in order to determine the changes over time in preventable and potentially preventable traumatic death rates, and to assess the factors that affected the deaths of trauma patients which occurred in Korean pre-hospital and hospital settings. METHODS: All trauma deaths occurring either in the emergency department (ED) or after admission at twenty Korean hospitals between August 2009 and July 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. The deaths were initially reviewed by a team of multidisciplinary specialists and classified into non-preventable, potentially preventable, and preventable deaths. Only preventable and potentially preventable deaths were the subject of our analysis. Structured data extraction included patient demographics, vital signs, injury severity, probability of survival, preventability of mortality, reported errors in the evaluation and management of the patient, and classification of error types (system, judgment, knowledge). RESULTS: During the study period, 446 trauma victims died in the ED or within 7 days after admission. The mean age was 52 years, 74.1% were men and the mean time from injury to death was 35.6 hours. The most common cause of death was head injury (44.7%) followed by hemorrhage (30.8%) and multi-organ failure (8.0%). The rates of preventable/potentially preventable deaths were 35.2% overall and 29.8% when limited to patients surviving to admission. Of all death classifications, 31.2% were potentially preventable and 4.0% were preventable. Errors leading to preventable death occurred in the emergency department (51.2%), pre-hospital setting (30.3%) and during inter-hospital transfer (60.8%). Most errors were related to clinical management (48.4%) and structural problems in the emergency medical system (36.5%). CONCLUSION: The preventable death rates for Korean trauma victims were higher than those found in other developed countries, possibly due to poorly established emergency medical systems for trauma victims in pre-hospital and hospital settings. A system wide approach based on the emergency medical system and well-developed in-hospital trauma teams should be adopted in order to improve the quality of care of trauma victims in Korea.

The Usefulness of Chest and Abdominal CT in Detection of Thoracolumbar Spine Fracture after Multiple Blunt Trauma

PURPOSE: To compare the accuracy of spine plain films with chest and abdominal Computed Tomography (CT) for trauma in detection of spine fractures. METHODS: Patients who sustained multiple blunt injury and required both thoraco-lumbar spine plain films and chest or abdominal CT scans were retrospectively identified. Of these 154 patients had both chest CT for trauma and thoracic spine plain films, and 220 patients had both abdominal CT for trauma and lumbar spine plain films. RESULTS: Of the fractures visible at either chest CT or thoracic spine plain film examination, all were diagnosed on CT and 50% on plain films. Of fractures visible at either abdominal CT or lumbar spine plain films, all were diagnosed on CT and 62% on plain films. CONCLUSION: Evaluation of the scanogram and bone windows when a patient has chest and abdominal CT appears to be as accurate as thoracic and lumbar spine films in the evaluation of spinal trauma. Further study is required to determine whether chest or abdominal CT scans routinely replace conventional radiographs of the thoracic or lumbar spine after blunt trauma.