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Congress: ECR24
Poster Number: C-24661
Type: EPOS Radiologist (scientific)
DOI: 10.26044/ecr2024/C-24661
Authorblock: B. Almazedi, D. Townsend; York/UK
Disclosures:
Bahir Almazedi: Nothing to disclose
David Townsend: Nothing to disclose
Keywords: Emergency, Radiographers, Trauma, CT, Comparative studies, Outcomes analysis, Quality assurance, Trauma
Purpose The aim of this project was to expedite access to CT for trauma patients, which is essential in aiding with the early diagnosis and management of these often very sick patients. National guidelines recommend that major trauma patients within trauma units should receive a CT scan within 60 minutes of arrival to the emergency department (Trauma Audit & Research Network – Trauma Unit Measures, and NHS England major trauma quality indicators for trauma units), and that a complete CT report should...
Read more Methods and materials Time to CT scan for major trauma patients in our institution was over the national standard of 1 hour.  We compared time to CT from arrival to the emergency department (ED) before and after the introduction of a direct to scan pathway (intervention) which bypassed the requirement of prior discussion and approval by the duty radiologist. Patients were identified with initial data collection prospectively and more data collected and analysed retrospectively for both sets of patients. Data collected from electronic patient...
Read more Results In total 118 major trauma patients requiring a trauma CT were included (53 before and 65 after the introduction of the direct to scan pathway). Of the 65 patients, 47 had the trauma team activated with 39 utilising the direct to scan pathway.Time to CT significantly reduced from a mean of 63 minutes to 47 minutes after the intervention (median 55 to 42 minutes, respectively). The proportion of patients having their CT scan within 1 hour of arrival to ED...
Read more Conclusion Including the CT radiographer as an active member of the trauma team with the application of the direct to scan pathway significantly reduced time to CT in our trauma unit. Patients’ injuries were diagnosed earlier, and treatment delivered more efficiently, ultimately improving patient care and outcome.There is a clear discrepancy in time to CT report between those reported in house by the duty local radiologist and those reported externally by outsourcing companies which is perhaps expected due to the inherent...
Read more References 1. https://www.rcr.ac.uk/system/files/publication/field_publication_files/bfcr155_traumaradiol.pdf [Accessed on 6/2/23].2. https://www.c4ts.qmul.ac.uk/downloads/quality-indicators-for-trauma.pdf [Accessed on 6/2/23].3. https://www.tarn.ac.uk/content/downloads/53/TU%20Dashboard%20Support%20Document%20May%2021.pdf [Accessed on 6/2/23]. 
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