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When trauma patients present at the BWH Emergency Department, they are evaluated according to a uniform set of evidence-based guidelines, whether the injuries are life-threatening or minor. On the other side of the globe at the Sri Ramasamy Memorial Hospital (SRM) in Chennai, India, trauma care is less organized, causing a greater risk for errors in patient care.
To help SRM improve its process for trauma care, BWH physicians are taking part in a five-year effort sponsored by Partners International.
“Our goal is to better organize SRM’s existing system so everyone understands their role and can begin care immediately after a patient is admitted,” said Tobias Barker, MD, of the Department of Emergency Medicine, who is clinical director of the trauma education mission.
Barker, along with Edward Kelly, MD, of Burn and Trauma Surgery, and others, traveled to Chennai in October and spent eight days assessing and analyzing trauma care at SRM. They found that physicians evaluate patients’ conditions using different sets of guidelines, and this lack of consensus increases the risk for diagnostic errors and missed injuries.
After their visit, Barker and his team drafted a 200-page document recommending ways the hospital can organize trauma care to ensure efficiency. “We’re teaching them to refine the way they care for patients,” he said. “They have all the necessary resources and a good basis to implement a sophisticated trauma care program.”
Next month, doctors and nurses from SRM plan to visit BWH to observe trauma care and take advanced trauma life support and other certification courses. Barker and his team next year will re-evaluate SRM, while others from BWH begin to assess Cardiology care practices at SRM.