Certified trauma center

• Assessment of injuries involving all necessary medical specialties
• Diagnostic evaluation
• Emergency care

Not every patient who sustains an accident-related bone fracture is seriously injured. Naturally, there can be a certain discrepancy between the subjective perception and the objective reality of a severe injury. A patient is considered severely injured or polytraumatized if their life is at risk and their condition has been classified accordingly using a checklist compiled by the German Society for Trauma Surgery based on sound, empirically supported criteria.

A single hospital can, of course, provide appropriate care for one or more injured patients; however, only the collaboration of many hospitals within a region can bring the care of seriously injured patients to a sufficiently high level in terms of both quantity and quality. In order to establish a network with functional competence, it was first necessary to classify the care capabilities of the various participating hospitals and facilities.

Three levels of care were defined:

• Local trauma centers ensure the initial treatment of critically injured patients within the framework of emergency surgical care
• Regional trauma centers as components of specialized care facilities. Here, comprehensive emergency care is provided with a specified number of specialized disciplines dedicated to treating severely injured patients, along with corresponding intensive care and surgical capacities
• Supra-regional trauma centers as components of maximum-care facilities. These are integrated into maximum-care hospitals; they have the specific task and obligation of providing interdisciplinary treatment for all seriously injured patients, particularly those with specific injury patterns and sequelae. University hospitals, large hospitals operated by workers’ compensation associations, and city hospitals in major cities are particularly suitable locations for supra-regional trauma centers.

In the event of a notification that a seriously injured patient is on the way, an alarm cascade is triggered within the GPR Hospital, resulting in a specified number of staff from the trauma surgery and anesthesiology departments, as well as the Institute of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and the nursing staff, assembling in the emergency room’s trauma center within minutes. Here they await the critically injured patient, who is handed over by the emergency physician. Under the joint care of the trauma surgery and anesthesiology departments, the patient’s condition is rapidly assessed, after which diagnostic evaluation and therapeutic stabilization begin simultaneously.

Within the GPR Clinic, virtually all specialties required for the care of a critically injured patient are competently represented. Only in the event of an immediately necessary neurosurgical intervention is the patient transferred, as agreed, to the Department of Neurosurgery at Mainz University Medical Center, with which a corresponding cooperation agreement is in place.