Hamad Medical Corporation Takes Important Steps in Trauma Care

Doha, September 23 (QNA) - Hamad Medical Corporation s Hamad General Hospital (HGH) moves closer to verification as a Level 1 Trauma Center through its participation in the United States National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB). With this achievement, HGH also becomes the first hospital outside the USA to contribute to the NTDB. Trauma is a leading cause of death in the young adult population within the Gulf region. Qatar is one of the first countries outside the United States to establish a complete trauma system to address the growing numbers of people falling victim to serious injury occurring mostly on the road and at work. Headed by Dr. Hassan Al Thani, the Trauma Center at HGH handles all of Qatar s trauma injuries and aspires to achieve accreditation by the American College of Surgeons as a Level 1 Trauma Center. Ms. Holly Ann Hepp, Trauma Program Manager at HGH said that having a computerized trauma registry and participating in the NTDB are essential pre-requisites for verification by the American College of Surgeons. The Trauma Registry at HGH, which was established in 2007, holds large amounts of data on the care of trauma patients that helps the Trauma Center team to continuously ensure they give the best possible care. The NTDB has more than five million records, and by participating we gain access to information that enables us to compare our performance to that in other trauma centers and thus to improve our efforts. The HGH Trauma Registry and NTDB data provide valuable information for research and education, as well as for decision-makers and those responsible for coming up with measures to prevent injury. "This is a huge milestone, not just for HGH but for the global trauma care environment, because now we are able to compare our performance with centers across the USA and will use this data eventually to compare our services with those in Europe and other countries," Ms. Hepp added. Adding her comments on this development, Ms. Monira Mollazehi, Trauma Database Administrator said, "We can now access information such as mortality rate benchmark data. Doing this, we have found that our mortality rate over the past several years, which has not exceeded 3%, is lower than the American benchmark of between 3.6 to 7%." Ms. Hepp went on to note that a robust performance improvement process is vital to achieving verification as a Level 1 Trauma Center. She cited the need to show major achievements such as having dedicated trauma physicians to enable compliance with a newly-instituted standard that requires consultants to be present in the trauma room within 15 minutes of the patient s arrival. "The NTDB benchmark is 80% but we have achieved 94% compliance this year, so we are doing better." Besides providing specialized care for trauma patients, the Trauma Center also works with the Supreme Council of Health, the Traffic Bureau and the Ministry of Interior in identifying measures to prevent injury. "As well as continuing our partnership with Qatar Foundation on injury prevention activities, we will also be playing our part in the recently launched 'Kulluna' health and safety campaign that has grown from a partnership between HMC and energy company ConocoPhillips, and will focus on how to prevent injuries at home, in school, at work and on the road," said Ms. Mollazehi. (QNA)