Emergency Management, including Tele Trauma:
In India alone, it is estimated that one million people die and 20 million are hospitalized every year due to injuries. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), about 4,13,457 people died in road accidents in India in 2015.https://www.nhp.gov.in/worldtraumaday2019_pg#:~:text=Every%20year%2C%20about%205%20million,accidents%20in%20India%20in%202015
Early deaths include deaths within 24 hours of arrival to a trauma center, excluding immediate deaths. These deaths are also a consequence of severe injuries, but the patients arrive at the hospital alive and are potentially treatable with prompt definitive care.The first 60 minutes after traumatic injury has been termed the “golden hour.”The concept that definitive trauma care must be initiated within this 60-minute window has been promulgated, taught, and practiced for more than 3 decades; the belief that injury outcomes improve with a reduction in time to definitive care is a basic premise of trauma systems and emergency medical services (EMS) systems. However, there is little evidence to directly support this relationship
Adding tele-ICU for trauma will enhance overall trauma care, according to severalacademics. Numerous initiatives have been successfully created and implemented with this goal in mind. Several additional researchers developed telemedicine services for trauma and emergencies based on their usage of tele trauma, mostly for the treatment of injuries in remote areas. The cost of sending these patients to large medical centers, the increasing use of local healthcare facilities, and other social and economic difficulties arising from treating these patients away from their families are all significantly impacted by this. It has also been evaluated and shown that telemedicine can evaluate additional trauma patients with clinical accuracy.
Remote trauma surgeons and referring healthcare professionals must be at ease and confident in their capacity to oversee and manage trauma patients in a remote site from a central location to fully utilize remote trauma resuscitation. Tele trauma has been shown to have many advantages, including fewer unnecessary transfers, lower mortality, lower costs, and more patient satisfaction. Patients who had sustained severe injuries were easier to spot and move when necessary. High clinical accuracy has also been observed in several other investigations. A trauma surgeon’s telepresence helps with the early assessment, care, and treatment of patients, increasing results and lowering costs. Tele-ICU has been widely used in wound and burns care, and it is one of the most common applications of telemedicine practices in surgeries. Tele-ICUis useful in burn and wound care by burn centers in particular.
Summary
There are numerous advantages and disadvantages to implementing and using E-ICU (Tele-ICU) for trauma and intensive care. The reduction in travel costs is significant; however, the initial capital costs for ICU and trauma units must be offset by the long-term benefits. Successful telemedicine programs have been implemented and serve as excellent models for others, but technology, programs, and systems have not been adopted as readily as expected. Many of the successful programs that do exist have not been scaled up to large-scale applications.
By continuing the mission of adopting technology and publishing the results of its use, empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of these technologies will contribute to wider acceptance by patients and physicians, leading to the establishment of additional clinical telemedicine programs adoption will, in turn, help save lives. Despite the initial high cost of establishing tele-ICUs and tele trauma, the evidence for their effectiveness is unquestionable, and these services will continue to grow. While technology is rapidly advancing and becoming less expensive, the cost of setting it up may eventually be reduced as well.
REFERENCES :
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312757303_Telemedicine_for_Trauma_and_Intensive_Care_Changing_the_Paradigm_of_Telepresence/link/59a32ece0f7e9b0fb8b03db6/downl
- https://www.nhp.gov.in/world-trauma-day-2019_pg#:~:text=Every%20year%2C%20about%205%20million,accidents%20in%20India%20in%202015
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3008652/
