Major Trauma Service

Clinical service overview

The service provides integrated emergency, trauma and critical care 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Over 5,000 trauma patients are admitted annually, with over 1,000 of these patients classed as major trauma.

The Trauma Service is within a modern purpose built facility, which includes:

• An onsite integrated helipad
• Four major trauma resuscitation/theatre bays with digital imaging and dedicated CT and MRI scanning
• 44 bed Trauma ward (2 West)
• State-of-the-art 36 bed ICU with 10 designated trauma beds
• Related Hyperbaric service
• Related Victorian Adult Burns unit

The Alfred Trauma staff are committed to providing excellence in trauma care through audit, quality improvement, education, training and clinical and laboratory research.

The Alfred Trauma Service is currently engaged in major international Trauma Capacity Building programs in China, India and Sri Lanka.

History

Trauma care has been a focus for The Alfred Hospital for over a century. Through two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the height of the Road Toll War of the late 1960s and 1970s, The Alfred staff have committed to improve the care of the trauma patient.

The Accident Clinic, the introduction of the Motor Accident Board of Trauma Surgeons in 1984, the TAC Trauma Service, the Trauma Service of The Department of General Surgery 1985, the Trauma Centre and Helipad in 1989, Trauma ICU and dedicated Trauma ward and the establishment of the Professorial Trauma Department in its own right, have all been steps in the evolution of a world standard Trauma Service.

Fundamental to that has been the involvement of the specialist surgical, diagnostic, ancillary medical and nursing services. The Victorian State Trauma System established in the late 1990s was the final step in the provision of an integrated system of trauma care.

The Alfred Trauma Registry

The Alfred Trauma Registry, based within the Trauma Service was established in late 1988, and serves to detail all major and selected minor trauma work undertaken at The Alfred.

The Registry collects patient information from all major trauma admission, all trauma ICU admissions, all trauma transfers, and all deaths after injury. The main functions of The Alfred Trauma Registry are to chronicle trauma activity at The Alfred, monitor quality and service delivery and to supply information to the Victorian State Trauma Registry.

The scope of the Registry has grown considerably since its beginnings, and is linked to the clinical unit with ongoing exchange of information. The Registry thus provides a major trauma database for trauma related research activities largely derived from the considerable major trauma dataset.

The Trauma Registry also provides information for, and contributes to, both The Alfred Trauma Management and Quality Improvement Committee and The Alfred Trauma Morbidity and Mortality Subcommittee.

Alfred Trauma Registry for the Trauma Services

The Alfred Trauma Research Committee have been established in 2021 to review and facilitate studies, particularly those involving Alfred Trauma inpatients. It will also facilitate feedback from trauma study results across The Alfred.

As a researcher, any studies that involve major trauma patients, from trauma reception to discharge, needs to be considered by the Alfred Trauma Research Committee before progressing for a review by The Alfred Ethics Committee for ethical approval. Please submit an Expression of Interest, where the Research Manager, National Trauma Research Institute, will coordinate the Alfred Trauma Research Committee for consideration.

National Trauma Research Institute (NTRI), Alfred Campus

Research involving the Trauma Service is coordinated by the National Trauma Research Institute:

ntri.org.au

Research is undertaken regarding:

• Trauma Systems
• Trauma Reception
• Trauma Resuscitation
• Trauma Nursing
• Physical Therapy

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