ABSTRACT
Trauma care systems in Spain are provided by the Nacional Health Service in a decentralized way by the seventeen autonomous communities whose process of decentralization was completed in January 2002. Its organisation is similar in all of them. Public sector companies of sanitary emergencies look after the health of citizens in relation to medical and trauma emergencies with a wide range of up to date resources both technical and human. In the following piece there is a description of the emergency response teams divided into ground and air that are responsible for the on site care of the patients in coordination with other public services. They also elaborate the prehospital clinical history that is going to be a valuable piece of information for the teams that receive the patient in the Emergency Hospital Unit (EHU). From 1980 to 1996 the mortality rate per 10.000 vehicles and the deaths per 1.000 accidents dropped significantly: in 1980 6.4 and 96.19% and in 1996, 2.8 and 64.06% respectively. In the intrahospital organisation there are two differentiated areas to receive trauma patients the casualty department and the EHU. In the EHU the severe and multiple injured patients are treated by the emergency hospital doctors; first in the triage or resuscitation areas and after when stabilised they are passed too the observation area or to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and from there the EHU or ICU doctors call the appropriate specialists. There is a close collaboration and coordination between the orthopaedic surgeon the EHU doctors and the other specialists surgeons in order to comply with treatment prioritization protocols. Once the patient has been transferred an entire process of assistance continuity is developed based on interdisciplinary teams formed in the hospital from the services areas involved in trauma assistance and usually coordinated by the ICU doctors. There is also mentioned the assistance registry of trauma patients, the ICU professional training in the ATLS and the future guidelines for trauma care in the ICU based on epidemiological studies carried out in both the North Spanish Group and the Southern one to promote development and improvement in several areas.
Subject(s)
Emergency Medical Services/organization & administration , Multiple Trauma/therapy , State Medicine/organization & administration , Traumatology/organization & administration , Accidents, Traffic/mortality , Adult , Emergency Medical Service Communication Systems/organization & administration , Emergency Medical Service Communication Systems/statistics & numerical data , Emergency Service, Hospital/organization & administration , Female , Humans , Male , Multiple Trauma/mortality , Practice Guidelines as Topic , Registries , Spain/epidemiology , Transportation of Patients/methodsABSTRACT
Considering the importance of research in the development of nursing, we examine the ethical principles governing nurses' investigative activity, as well as the different codes regulating biomedical investigation with human beings, amongst which are the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Human Rights, and the Declaration of Helsinki. From the perspective of the central points of the article reference is made to different codes proposed by international nursing associations, as well as reviewing the Deontological Code of Spanish Nursing. The ethical principles a nurse has to bear in mind in research are analysed, with respect to patients, society and the profession. Finally, we refer to certain ethical aspects to be considered in the elaboration and development of a research project, as well as publication of the results.
