Establishing a national trauma system

A prerequisite for high-quality trauma care in hospital emergency departments is the existence of a strategy for the planning, organization and provision of a national trauma system. The strategy for the organization of a national trauma care system needs to be formulated by health policymakers with input from medical professionals to provide research-based guidelines, standards and general advice about the treatment of trauma victims. Trauma centres in several European Countries have protocols for the pre-hospital and hospital phase. National guidelines need to be formulated in consultation with national, scientific medical societies on trauma centres and their organization.

Each trauma system must be defined by local needs and assessments of capacity and developed with due regard for local culture, legislation, infrastructure, health-system capacity, economic considerations and administrative resources [36]. International essential trauma care guidelines have recently been established by the World Health Organization.

There is considerable potential worldwide and in Europe to upgrade arrangements for trauma care and improve training in trauma care at the primary health care level, in district hospitals and in tertiary care hospitals [48][7][11]. The US vision of a national trauma system is set out below [41].