Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is estimated to affect 50-60 million people world-wide annually, costing the global economy the equivalent of $400 billion. TBI’s affect all levels of care and every hospital in the world. Developing strategic methods to ensure timely and appropriate care is provided to these patients can be a moving target. At our facility, approximately 20% of our admitted traumatically injured patients suffer a TBI. Through retrospective data review, we discovered that there was not a standardized care pathway for these patients. The TBI Triage Tool was born out of necessity to redirect resources, specifically intensive care unit (ICU) beds, radiologic studies, and nursing care, to the appropriate TBI patient population. Our research allowed for the design of care guidelines that were not provider dependent, but a system-wide treatment plan that mirrored evolving and verified national research. Through the implementation of this project, we saw significant reduction in ICU bed and repeat imaging utilization with no increase in patient complications. We implemented a micro-targeted approach with our collaborative provider partners, that produced macro-results and changed the way we do Trauma Quality Improvement to build sustainable, adaptable, and supported projects. This program has been nationally recognized and is expanding to other centers to produce patient centered, provider supported and evidence-based outcomes.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify clinically appropriate and evidence-based pathways for TBI patients.
- Develop tools to analyze and review interventions, post-implementation, to see if there are observable decreases in resource utilization based on established baselines at their respective facilities.
- Learners will also be able to understand the concepts of balancing metrics (institution specific) and their relation to performance improvement projects.
Members who are logged will be provided with a CE Credit link (below) for the duration of 3 years from the original presentation date (noted above). After 3 years, CE will no longer be made available. Members however are still welcome to watch the presentation independently for non-CE credit.
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Speaker(s):Kris Gallegos, RN, BSN, TCRN is the Trauma Program Manager at Stanford Health Care, a Level 1 Academic Center. She has 26 years of healthcare experience ranging from a rural area Paramedic, a clinical Trauma Nurse, an EMS Curriculum Developer and has found a true calling in Trauma Quality and Program Management for the past 12 years. She finds joy in working on trauma performance improvement projects, her dogs, the San Francisco Giants and traveling the world with her partner.
