Although hospital preparedness is emphasized in credible references, this study showed that lack of preparedness is a major challenge for hospitals during disasters. Thus, it seems that hospital officials' disaster risk perception and hospital preparedness should be improved. In addition, hospital preparedness assessment indexes should be included in the hospital accreditation process. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:422-430).

BACKGROUND:Trauma is considered as a worldwide problem despite socio-economic development. Motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) are the most important cause of trauma. Trauma related deaths are mostly preventable. This study aimed to investigate the causes and prevention of death in trauma patients. METHODS:This retrospective, descriptive-analytic study assessed 100 trauma patients referred to our emergency department (ED) from January 2013 to Januanry 2015. The included patients were those with trauma died after arrival at our ED. Age, sex, cause of trauma, clinical causes of death, causes of death defi ned by autopsy, way of transfer to the ED, time of ambulance arrival at the scene of trauma, and time elapsed to enter the ED from the scene of trauma were studied. RESULTS:In the 100 patients, 21 (21%) patients were female and 79 (79%) male. Fortythree patients were older than 60 years. Trauma was largely due to pedestrian accidents in 31% of the patients, and 33% had a hypo-volemic shock. About 80% of deaths were due to intra-cranial hemorrhage (ICH) or intra-ventricular hemorrhage (IVH), and spinal injuries were not preventable. Autopsy revealed that 28% of the patients suffered from internal injuries. Autopsy revealed that 19% of the deaths were not preventable and 81% were considered preventable. In our patients, 76 were transferred to the hospital by emergency medicine services (EMS). Analysis of time for ambulance arrival to the scene and frequency of death revealed that 52.2% of the deaths occurred between 11 and 15 minutes. Analysis of time for admission to the ED from the scene of trauma showed that 74.6% deaths occurred between 6 and 10 minutes. CONCLUSIONS:The rate of hospital preventable deaths is about 80%, a high mortality rate, which denotes a lack of proper diagnosis and treatment. The time for arrival of EMS at the scene of trauma is longer than that in other countries.

Objective: Death from trauma is a major problem for the health system. The determination of preventable deaths is a valuable indicator of quality and efficiency in the management of trauma patients. The purpose of our study was to investigate the cause of preventable death in pre-hospital settings in the city of Tabriz. Materials and Methods:In a cross-sectional study from 2013 to 2014 in Tabriz, all traumatic patients who died at the scene of trauma or during transport and before reaching the hospital were referred to forensics for autopsy studies. For all deaths, data on demographics, mechanism and type of injury, place of death, mode of transportation, injury to the central nervous system (CNS) and results of necropsy were recorded. Preventability of death was defined upon examination of the necropsy report.Results: In this study, 160 pre-hospital deaths were studied. The commonest mechanism of injury was a vehicular traffic accident (83.8%), and blunt trauma in 98.8% was the commonest type of injury. In total, 80.6% of the deaths were at the scene of trauma and 18.8% on arrival to the hospital. CNS injury was recorded in 71.9% of the cases. The commonest cause of death from the necropsy report was CNS injury (60.6%), exsanguination or breathing problems (28.1%), and CNS injury with exsanguination or breathing problems (11.2%). In this study, death was possibly preventable in 25.6% of the cases, and 21.9% of the deaths were definitively preventable. Conclusion:Many deaths occurred at the scene of trauma, and traffic accidents are the main mechanism of injury. A high percentage of deaths as seen in the autopsy had CNS injuries, and this was the main cause of death. The high rate of preventable death in the present study compared to that in similar studies in other countries is a significant finding.

IntroductionThe most common cause of hospital emergency department visits is trauma resulting from a variety of underlying mechanisms. Unknown neck and spinal cord injuries and a lack of early diagnosis can have catastrophic consequences, such as paralysis of some or all limbs. The use of imaging techniques reduces the number of patients suffering from severe injuries.ObjectiveTo assess and compare the effectiveness and ease of utilizing two different sets of guidelines, the National Emergency X-Radiography Utilization Study guidelines (NEXUS) and the Canadian C-Spine guidelines (CCR), on trauma patients.MethodsThis study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Of all the patients presenting to the hospital, 200 trauma patients were randomly included in the study. NEXUS and CCR were surveyed for each patient, and subsequent radiographies were also requested. The specificity and sensitivity of each of the methods was calculated, and the two methods were compared using Kendall’s W test.ResultsA total of 200 trauma patients who met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. A total of 69.5% of the patients were male, and 30.5% were female. According to NEXUS guidelines, 47.5% of the patients were required to undergo neck radiography. According to CCR guidelines, 57.5% of the patients were required to undergo neck radiography. The sensitivity was found to be 90% for neck radiography by both NEXUS and CCR guidelines, while specificities were found to be 54.73% and 44.2% for NEXUS and CCR guidelines, respectively.ConclusionThis study showed that the two guidelines have the same sensitivity for evaluating which trauma patients need to undergo radiography. It seems that the NEXUS guidelines have the same effectiveness as CCR for determining which trauma patients need to undergo radiography. They also perform better than CCR guidelines in terms of ruling out which cases need no further radiologic investigation.

Objective: Nowadays, simulation of clinical environment in medical education system (simulation-based learning) has led to a huge revolution in the quality of education and has increased the safety of educators and patients. In this study, we investigated the effect of teacher-made neck and lung simulators in teaching cricothyrotomy skills for emergency medicine residents. Methods: In this pre-post test study, all faculty member of emergency medicine of Tabriz University of medical sciences specialty were invited to participate. After holding an educational and training session for assistants on a teacher-made moulage, all emergency medicine residents performed a tracheostomy on the commercial moulages of the skill lab unit for the second time and their scores were recorded. Results: In this study, 23 emergency medicine residents participated. The mean±standard deviation of age was 35.91±3.57 years. There was a significant difference between the mean duration of cricothyrotomy before and after the training (P value=0.006). There was also a significant difference between the mean scores obtained by residents in the pre-and post-training evaluation (P value<0.001). Conclusion: Findings showed that the moulages constructed by teachers not only can be effective in improving the cricothyrotomy skills in emergency medicine residents but also can reduce the likelihood of failure in performing cricothyrotomy.

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