Nearly 30 million Americans lack timely access to trauma centers, and teletrauma presents a promising approach to fill that gap — though it remains underutilized, according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Teletrauma care enables patients to receive consultations with trauma and subspecialty surgeons, as well as emergency department providers, in support of clinical care during the initial treatment of injuries. Preliminary evidence suggests that pre-hospital teletrauma care is associated with improved quality of initial trauma care, shorter transfer times and fewer unnecessary transfers.
However, a national survey of 4,512 EDs found only 8% used teletrauma in 2020. Teletrauma use ranged from 0% in Alabama, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Indiana, New Jersey, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina, to 60.9% in Arkansas, 75.6% in South Dakota and 85.7% in North Dakota.
"Teletrauma care has the potential to help save lives and improve care coordination for injured patients located far away from major trauma centers," Mohammad Hashmi, MD, assistant professor in the UAB division of trauma and acute care surgery, said in a Nov. 11 news release. "That means that patients can receive better trauma care closer to home — severely injured patients can be treated and transferred quickly to trauma centers, while those with less severe injuries can avoid high costs and the inconvenience associated with ambulance transfers to distant trauma centers."
A few barriers hinder broader teletrauma adoption.
"Trauma-specific barriers, such as evidence-based clinical workflows and staffing models, have remained largely unresolved," Dr. Hashmi said. "Currently, there are no telehealth implementation toolkits, and there is no consensus among the trauma care community regarding the standards and verification of teletrauma programs. These seem to be the major barriers hindering progress in this area."