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The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was first diagnosed in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and has now spread throughout the world, being verified by the World Health Organization as a pandemic on March 11. This had led to the calling of a national emergency on March 13 in the US. Many hospitals, healthcare networks, and specifically, departments of surgery, are asking the same questions about how to cope and plan for surge capacity, personnel attrition, novel infrastructure utilization, and resource exhaustion. Herein, we present a tiered plan for surgical department planning based on incident command levels. This includes acute care surgeon deployment (given their critical care training and vertically integrated position in the hospital), recommended infrastructure and transfer utilization, triage principles, and faculty, resident, and advanced care practitioner deployment.

Acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (ACPO) is a rare but often fatal disease. Herein, we present the largest study to date on ACPO. The National Inpatient Sample was queried for ACPO diagnoses from 1998 to 2011. Patients were analyzed by treatment into four groups: medical management (MM), colonoscopy alone [(endoscopy-only group) ENDO], surgery alone (SURG), or surgery and colonoscopy (SAC). Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of adverse outcomes by treatment group. There were 106,784 cases of ACPO: 96,657 (90.5%) MM, 2,915 (2.7%) ENDO, 6,731 (6.3%) SURG, and 481 (0.5%) SAC. The medical complication (45.7%), procedural complication (15.9%), and mortality rates (7.7%) were high. Increasing procedure invasiveness was independently associated with higher odds of medical complications, procedural complications, and death ( P < 0.0125). The odds of death were significantly higher in the ENDO [odds ratio (OR) = 1.2], SURG (OR 1.4), and SAC (OR = 1.8) groups ( P < 0.0125). Those who fail MM and require procedures have increasing morbidity and mortality with increasing invasiveness, likely reflecting the severity of their conditions.

As graduate medical education becomes ever more regulated, physician extenders can be successfully integrated into busy academic Level I trauma centers. This integration positively impacts patient flow and resident work hours without altering patient outcomes or direct hospital cost.

BackgroundViolent injury and reinjury take a devastating toll on distressed communities. Many trauma centers have created hospital-based violent injury prevention programs (HVIP) to address psychosocial, educational, and mental health needs of injured patients that may contribute to reinjury.ObjectivesTo evaluate the overall effectiveness of HVIPs for violent injury prevention. We performed an evidence-based review to answer the following population, intervention, comparator, outcomes (PICO) question: Are HVIPs attending to adult patients (age 18+) treated for intentional injury more effective than the usual care at preventing: intentional violent reinjury and/or death; arrest and/or incarceration; substance abuse and/or mental issues; job and/or school attainment?Data sourcesPubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library were queried for salient articles by a professional librarian on two separate occasions, and related articles were identified from references.Study eligibility criteria, participants, interventionsEligible studies examined adult patients treated for intentional injury in a hospital-based violence prevention program compared to a control group.Study appraisal and synthesis methodsWe used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology to assess the breadth and quality of the evidence.Results71 articles were identified. After discarding duplicates, reviews, and those articles that did not address our PICO questions, we ultimately reviewed 10 articles. We found insufficient evidence to recommend adult-focused HVIP interventions.LimitationsThere was a relative paucity of data, and available studies were limited by self-selection bias and small sample sizes.ConclusionsWe make no recommendation with respect to adult-focused HVIP interventions.

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Return transfer (RT) to the intensive care unit (ICU) negatively impacts patient outcomes, length of stay (LOS), and hospital costs. This study assesses the most common events necessitating RT in trauma patients. We performed a retrospective chart review of ICU RT from 2004 to 2008. Patient demographics, injuries and injury severity, reason for transfer, LOS, interventions, and outcomes data were collected. Overall, 158 patients required readmission to the ICU. Respiratory insufficiency/ failure (48%) was the most common reason for RT followed by cardiac (16%) and neurological (13%) events. The most commonly associated injuries were traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) (32%), rib fractures (30%), and pulmonary contusions (20%). Initial ICU LOS was 6.6 ± 8 days (range, 1 to 44 days) with 4.4 ± 7.8 ventilator days. Mean floor time before ICU RT was 5.7 ± 6.3 days (range, 0 to 33 days). Forty-nine patients (31%) required intubation and mechanical ventilation on RT. ICU RT incurred an additional ICU LOS of 8 ± 8.5 days (range, 1 to 40 days) and 5.2 ± 7.5 ventilator days. Mortality after a single RT was 10 per cent (n = 16). RT to the ICU most often occurs as a result of respiratory compromise, and patients with TBI are particularly vulnerable. Trauma pulmonary hygiene practices should be evaluated to determine strategies that could decrease RT.

It has been previously reported that trauma patients with cirrhosis undergoing emergency abdominal operations exhibit a fourfold increase in mortality independent of their Child's classification. We undertook this review to assess the impact of cirrhosis on trauma patients. We reviewed the records of patients from 1993 to 2003 with documented hepatic cirrhosis and compared them to a 2:1 control population without hepatic cirrhosis and matched for age, sex, Injury Severity Score (ISS), and Glasgow Coma Score (GCS). Demographic, severity of injury, and outcome data were recorded. Student's t test and χ2 were used for statistical analysis and a P < 0.05 was significant. Sixty-one patients had documented cirrhosis and were compared to 156 matched controls. Comparing the two groups demonstrates there was no difference in age, ISS, or GCS. Intensive care stay, hospital length of stay, blood requirements in the first 24 hours postinjury, and mortality (33% vs 1%) was significantly greater in the trauma patients with cirrhosis. Fifty-five per cent of deaths in the cirrhosis group was due to sepsis, and, as the Child's class increases, so does the mortality (Child's A, 15%; B, 37%; and C, 63%). In 64 per cent of cirrhotics without an emergent abdominal operation, mortality was 21 per cent. In the 36 per cent of cirrhotics who had emergent abdominal operation, mortality was 55 per cent. Hepatic cirrhosis in trauma patients, regardless of severity of injury or the need for an abdominal intervention, is a poor prognostic indicator. The necessity of an abdominal operative intervention further amplifies this effect. Trauma and cirrhosis is, in fact, a deadly duo.