Ministry of Health

http://newzealand.govt.nz/

    
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 Published: 28/11/2011

Mechanism of Trauma Call

The trauma call may be initiated at any time: from the receiving of an RT call to definitive care as may otherwise have been arranged. The trauma call, and response, is designed to decrease times to definitive care, when there is the potential for delays to worsen outcomes.

The nurse co-ordinator dials 777 and request the "trauma team".

The trauma team will not be activated by any other mechanism. There are no partial calls. The telephone operator initiates the trauma team group page and then will log the call from the Emergency Department.

It is the responsibility of all members of the trauma team to respond immediately to the call. Delegate to an individual of equal or greater seniority when personal attendance is not possible, specifically, it is the on-call general surgical registrar's responsibility to ensure a representative from one of the surgical services attends every trauma call. When scrubbed the general surgical registrar should first nominate the orthopaedic registrar, next the neurosurgical registrar, next the urology registrar. At night, when neurosurgical and urology registrars are not in the hospital, call the paediatric surgical registrar.

The team members should introduce themselves prior to patient arrival, if possible. The team leader should wear the 'yellow jacket'.

Last updated on 28/11/2011