Association of Practitioner Interfacility Triage Performance With Outcomes for Severely Injured Patients With Fee-for-Service Medicare Insurance

Using a theory-based, customized video game as an educational tool to improve physicians' trauma triage decisions: study protocol for a randomized cluster trial

BACKGROUND

Transfer of severely injured patients to trauma centers, either directly from the field or after evaluation at non-trauma centers, reduces preventable morbidity and mortality. Failure to transfer these patients appropriately (i.e., under-triage) remains common, and occurs in part because physicians at non-trauma centers make diagnostic errors when evaluating the severity of patients' injuries. We developed Night Shift, a theory-based adventure video game, to recalibrate physician heuristics (intuitive judgments) in trauma triage and established its efficacy in the laboratory. We plan a type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial to determine whether the game changes physician triage decisions in real-life and hypothesize that it will reduce the proportion of patients under-triaged.

METHODS

We will recruit 800 physicians who work in the emergency departments (EDs) of non-trauma centers in the US and will randomize them to the game (intervention) or to usual education and training (control). We will ask those in the intervention group to play Night Shift for 2 h within 2 weeks of enrollment and again for 20 min at quarterly intervals. Those in the control group will receive only usual education (i.e., nothing supplemental). We will then assess physicians' triage practices for older, severely injured adults in the 1-year following enrollment, using Medicare claims, and will compare under-triage (primary outcome), 30-day mortality and re-admissions, functional independence, and over-triage between the two groups. We will evaluate contextual factors influencing reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance with interviews of a subset of trial participants (n = 20) and of other key decision makers (e.g., patients, first responders, administrators [n = 100]).

DISCUSSION

The results of the trial will inform future efforts to improve the implementation of clinical practice guidelines in trauma triage and will provide deeper understanding of effective strategies to reduce diagnostic errors during time-sensitive decision making.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT06063434 . Registered 26 September 2023.

Evaluating pre-hospital triage and decision-making in patients who died within 30 days post-trauma: A multi-site, multi-center, cohort study

INTRODUCTION

Evaluating pre-hospital triage and decision-making in patients who died post-trauma is crucial to decrease undertriage and improve future patients' chances of survival. A study that has adequately investigated this is currently lacking. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate pre-hospital triage and decision-making in patients who died within 30 days post-trauma.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A multi-site, multi-center, cohort study was conducted. Trauma patients who were transported from the scene of injury to a trauma center by ambulance and died within 30 days post-trauma, were included. The main outcome was undertriage, defined as erroneously transporting a severely injured patient (Injury Severity Score ≥ 16) to a lower-level trauma center.

RESULTS

Between January 2015 and December 2017, 2116 patients were included, of whom 765 (36.2%) were severely injured. A total of 103 of these patients (13.5%) were undertriaged. Undertriaged patients were often elderly with a severe head and/or thoracic injury as a result of a minor fall (< 2 m). A majority of the undertriaged patients were triaged without assistance of a specialized physician (100 [97.1%]), did not meet field triage criteria for level-I trauma care (81 [78.6%]), and could have been transported to the nearest level-I trauma center within 45 min (93 [90.3%]).

CONCLUSION

Approximately 14% of the severely injured patients who died within 30 days were undertriaged and could have benefited from treatment at a level-I trauma center (i.e., specialized trauma care). Improvement of pre-hospital triage is needed to potentially increase future patients' chances of survival.

Outcomes after a Digital Behavior Change Intervention to Improve Trauma Triage: An Analysis of Medicare Claims

BACKGROUND

Under-triage in trauma remains prevalent, in part because of decisions made by physicians at non-trauma centers. We developed two digital behavior change interventions to recalibrate physician heuristics (pattern recognition), and randomized 688 emergency medicine physicians to use the interventions or to a control. In this observational follow-up, we evaluated whether exposure to the interventions changed physician performance in practice.

METHODS

We obtained 2016 - 2018 Medicare claims for severely injured patients, linked the names of trial participants to National Provider Identifiers (NPIs), and identified claims filed by trial participants for injured patients presenting to non-trauma centers in the year before and after their trial. The primary outcome measure was the triage status of severely injured patients.

RESULTS

We linked 670 (97%) participants to NPIs, identified claims filed for severely injured patients by 520 (76%) participants, and claims filed at non-trauma centers by 228 (33%). Most participants were white (64%), male (67%), and had more than three years of experience (91%). Patients had a median Injury Severity Score of 16 (IQR 16 - 17), and primarily sustained neuro-trauma. After adjustment, patients treated by physicians randomized to the interventions experienced less under-triage in the year after the trial than before (41% versus 58% [-17%], P = 0.015); patients treated by physicians randomized to the control experienced no difference in under-triage (49% versus 56% [-7%], P = 0.35). The difference-in-the-difference was non-significant (10%, P = 0.18).

CONCLUSIONS

It was feasible to track trial participants' performance in national claims. Sample size limitations constrained causal inference about the effect of the interventions.