The 2024 Erlanger Trauma & Surgical Critical Care Symposium will take place May 30-31, 2024, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium is Ryan Dumas, MD, associate professor of surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center and associate trauma medical director at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. The title of Dr. Dumas’ address is “Beyond the EMR: How to Implement, Maintain and Grow a Trauma Video Review Program”. Other lectures will include: Artificial Intelligence in Surgery Orthopaedic Trauma Resuscitation Open Repair of GSW Through Aorta Urban Search and ..read more

Peregrine Health Services and Trauma System News are pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Peregrine Award for Trauma Innovation — Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and the Montana State Trauma Care Committee. “I am very pleased to congratulate the winners of the 2024 Peregrine Award for Trauma Innovation,” said Mark Feinberg, managing partner of Peregrine Health Services and CEO of National Quality Systems (NQS). “We created the Peregrine Award to recognize and disseminate fresh ideas that result in better care for injured patients, so we are honored to shine a light on these tw ..read more

The American College of Surgeons now requires trauma centers to assess the pediatric readiness of their emergency department (ED) and develop a plan for closing identified gaps. Unfortunately, many administrators at adult facilities do not see the urgency of this requirement. At the same time, many trauma and ED leaders have misconceptions about the difficulty and cost of improving pediatric readiness. This webinar will help trauma center and ED leaders sort through the many options and possibilities to chart a clear and manageable path to pediatric readiness. Emergency nursing expert Karen We ..read more

The U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently launched a review of Medicare payments for trauma claims. Angie Chisolm, MBA, BSN, RN, CFRN, TCRN One focus of the OIG review is trauma team activation (TTA) payments to hospitals that are not properly designated or verified trauma centers. While this is a genuine concern for the government, it is fairly easy for hospitals to avoid getting into trouble on this point. (In case clarification is needed, if your hospital is not properly designated by your state or verified by the American College of Surgeons as a trauma center, you cannot bill ..read more

Kevin Collopy, MHL, FP-C, NRP, CMTE, is the clinical outcomes and compliance manager for air and ground transport operations at Novant Health Mobile Health in Wilmington, North Carolina. But in 2022, he was recruited to help develop programs for teaching trauma care skills to healthcare providers in Ukraine. Since then, he has helped train nearly 1,000 Ukrainian first responders, nurses, and physicians in providing prehospital care to injured Ukrainians. Trauma System News interviewed Collopy by email to learn about his experience in Ukraine and find out what lessons it has for trauma leaders ..read more

The 2024 Metrolina Trauma Symposium will take place May 9 and 10 at the Harris Conference Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Conference presentations will cover a range of issues in trauma nursing, prehospital care, trauma registry, trauma quality improvement and other topics. The symposium is being presented by the Metrolina Trauma Advisory Committee, which encompasses eleven counties in western North Carolina. To learn more about the event, visit 2024 Metrolina Trauma Symposium. To register to attend, visit Trauma Symposium Registration ..read more

Concurrent review of nonsurgical admissions (NSAs) allows trauma program staff to identify opportunities to optimize care while the patient is still in the hospital. However, many trauma centers struggle to operationalize concurrent inpatient review. According to Ginger Knapp, MSN, RN, CEN, one key to solving this challenge is to leverage the trauma registry to organize information on NSA patients and drive timely care interventions. Knapp is the trauma program coordinator (TPC) for Froedtert Menomonee Falls Hospital and Froedtert West Bend Hospital in Southeast Wisconsin. Both trauma centers ..read more

When it comes to impactful trauma cases in the Emergency Department, obstetrics cases are often the ones that stick with us the most. Whether the outcome is good or bad, we remember OB cases for a long time. And we always want to learn from the ones with non-optimal outcomes. My colleagues and I at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, a Level I trauma center in Downers Grove, Illinois, experienced a case like this in 2021. As an obstetric case, it spotlighted a clear opportunity for improvement in a vulnerable patient population. Eventually, it led us to make an important change in our trauma cri ..read more

The U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG), the government’s watchdog agency for fraud and abuse, has recently begun investigating improper billing for trauma team activations. What do trauma program leaders need to know about these investigations — and how can they make sure they are fully compliant with CMS payment rules for trauma care? This new webinar with trauma center management expert Angie Chisolm takes a close look at the investigations and what they mean for trauma center leadership teams. She shares what she knows about the OIG audits, breaks down the key issues, and provides targe ..read more

The Grey Book from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) is succinct in its wording and straightforward in its requirements. Yet in some cases, it can be hard to get a full picture of the expectations from the standards document alone. In addition, many trauma program leaders are unsure how to design policies and processes that comply with the more challenging standards. This January 2024 webinar takes a deep-dive look at several Grey Book standards that are easily misunderstood and/or hard to implement. Trauma center management expert Angie Chisolm walks through key standards, provides essen ..read more