The key to a high performance trauma team is having a skilled communication, cooperation, and coordination are the cornerstones of high-performance teams and high-quality trauma care.
Trauma care teams treat patients that have critical injuries threatening life or limbs.
These severely injured patients often require multi-disciplinary, comprehensive emergency medical services.
Trauma surgeons have advanced training in procedures of a critical and invasive nature.
The Trauma team is a multidisciplinary group of individuals drawn from the specialties of emergency medicine, intensive care, surgery, nursing, allied health and support staff, who work together as a team to assess and manage the trauma patient.
Their actions are coordinated by a team leader.
Depending on the local situation, the trauma team can be led by an emergency physician as well. In the basic set up, an anaesthetist, one or two emergency department (ED) nurses, and a radiology technician join the team leader.
In the United States, trauma centers are ranked by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) or local state governments, from Level I (comprehensive service) to Level III (limited-care).
The different levels refer to the types of resources available in a trauma center and the number of patients admitted yearly.
While the ER treats a wider variety of ailments, ranging from non-life threatening injuries to potential heart attacks and strokes, a trauma center is equipped to handle the most serious of conditions such as car accident injuries, gunshot wounds, traumatic brain injuries, stab wounds, serious falls, and blunt trauma.