MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Aaron J. Dawes, MD
Fellow, VA/RWJF Clinical Scholars Program
Division of Health Services Research, University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Dawes: In the fall of 2013, we formed the Los Angeles County Trauma Consortium, building upon a prior administrative relationship between LA County’s 14 trauma centers. We added health research researchers from UCLA and USC, and shifted the focus of the group from logistical issues to quality improvement. As a first project, our hospitals wanted to know if there was any variation in how traumatic brain injury patients are cared for across the county. Traumatic brain injury accounts for over 1/3 of all injury-related deaths in the U.S. and is the number one reason for ambulance transport to a trauma center in LA County.
When we looked at the data, we found widespread variation in both how these patients were cared for at different hospitals and what happened to them as a result of that care. After adjusting for important differences in patient mix, we found that mortality rates varied by hospital from roughly 25% to 55%. As we tried to explain this variation, we looked into how often hospitals complied with two evidence-based guidelines from the Brain Trauma Foundation, hoping that we could eventually develop an intervention to boost compliance with these recommended care practices. While compliance rates varied even more widely than mortality—from 10 to 65% for intracranial pressure monitoring and 7 to 76% for craniotomy—they did not appear to be associated with risk-adjusted mortality rates. Put simply, we found no connection between how often hospitals complied with the guidelines and how likely their patients were to survive.