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 also significantly increased from 58% to 87% after the introduction of the direct to scan pathway.

The mean time to primary report was 15 minutes (for in-house reports). That increased to 37 minutes for outsourced reports. The mean time to secondary/complete CT report was 61 minutes (in-house reports) and 67 minutes (outsourced reports). The in-house time to secondary report significantly reduced to 42 minutes when excluding one outlier.  Proportion of CT scans reported within 1 hour was 87% (in-house) and 50% (outsourced). All CT reports were verified by a consultant radiologist within 24 hours. However, structured reports overall were only used in 42% of cases. 

Positive traumatic injury findings were reported in 68% of scans. Of these, 44% were purely orthopaedic injuries including fractures and dislocations. Most common injuries were spinal fractures followed by thoracic injuries.