How Trauma is Treated

Treatment for trauma varies depending on the specific injury, its severity, and its location on the body, as well as the proximity to emergency and higher levels of care. While there have been many advances in trauma care over the past several decades—including the advent of the medevac system, improved tourniquets, and the use of shunts in vascular trauma—there remain many gaps in knowledge that may lead to preventable deaths.

Even at state-of-the-art trauma centers, there are opportunities to improve outcomes, as surgeons seek better solutions for hemorrhage control, resuscitation strategies, coagulopathy identification and many more acute conditions encountered in traumatic injury.

Source: A National Trauma Care System, Integrating Military and Civilian Trauma Systems to Achieve ZERO Preventable Deaths After Injury. NASEM, 2016.