The University of Alabama at Birmingham eMedicine launched a pilot teletrauma program at Russell Medical and six UAB St. Vincent’s locations.

Teletrauma is the concept of utilizing remote consultation capabilities to offer trauma expertise in smaller more rural hospitals and care facilities.

While teletrauma is not a new concept, researchers and clinicians are working to integrate this program to explicitly solve the problem of timely access to trauma care. For individuals who live in more rural and smaller communities, lack of access to certain resources such as trauma care is a problem. This program seeks to shift focus from just offering a service to more readily fulfilling these needs.

Doctors at Russell Medical and UAB St. Vincent’s Birmingham, Blount, St. Clair, Chilton, East, and Trussville FED will utilize this program to improve upon the already superior care offered at these locations.

“This pilot program will seek to enhance initial management of severely injured patients and expedite their transfer to a trauma center,” said Mohammad Zain Hashmi, M.D., an assistant professor in the UAB Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery and director of the UAB teletrauma program. “Secondly, we aim to identify patients who can be safely discharged home, thereby avoiding resource-intensive and costly interfacility transfers to UAB Trauma Center.”

This novel implementation will allow emergency department doctors and physicians at these integrated locations to activate a teletrauma consultation. This two-way audiovisual communication, initiated at the rural physician’s discretion, will allow for both physicians and patients to speak with the trauma surgeons at UAB. Upon review of the patient’s reports and condition, doctors can make more detailed decisions on whether a transfer is necessary or the patient can benefit from being discharged.

UAB doctors will be able to give recommendations for options such as short-term observations at the current facility and allow for follow-up evaluations to make better decisions without the need for in-person evaluations.

“By connecting local providers and staff with UAB trauma surgeons in real time, UAB Teletrauma can offer lifesaving expertise for patient stabilization and management, while also streamlining transfers when higher levels of care are needed,” said Matt Murphee, operations manager for UAB eMedicine.

The program can result in significant decreases to the rates of potentially avoidable transfers and would directly save patients money by making informed decisions before the transfer is made. Ultimately working in favor of the patients who live in these more rural locations, this program will align lifesaving work with cost-effective decision-making while improving upon the quality of the care provided in these smaller non-trauma center emergency departments.

“The goal of any trauma system is to ensure that every injured patient receives the right care, at the right place and at the right time,” Hashmi said. “By deploying teletrauma, we are strengthening our trauma system and expanding timely access to high-quality care for injured patients across our communities.”

Hashmi’s research suggests that the development of strategies to implement standardized teletrauma care can decrease the gap between the specialized care offered in an American College of Surgeons designated Level 1 trauma center such as UAB with the care offered in a smaller community’s local hospital. These programs would improve the quality of initial teletrauma care received.

“The teletrauma program is an important step as we continue to build a broader community of trauma care throughout the state of Alabama,” said Jeffrey Kerby, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UAB Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. “The UAB Trauma program looks forward to partnering with our colleagues at centers throughout the state to deliver this service.”