Objective To explore the influence of two emergency reception and triages workflows between Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes on the victim’s length of stay in emergency department of the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. Methods A total of 65 victims admitted in the West China Hospital within 12 hours after Lushan earthquake were retrospectively analyzed, and their diagnosis and treatment information and the length of stay in emergency department were collected and compared with those of the victims in Wenchuan earthquake. Then we analyzed the influence of two emergency reception and triage workflows on the length of stay of the batches of earthquake victims. Results For the Lushan earthquake victims, the median length of stay in the emergency reception and triage workflow was 0.51 hour, while that was 2.13 hours for the Wenchuan earthquake victims, with a significant difference (Plt;0.05). Conclusion The emergency reception and triage workflow for Lushan earthquake victims is a summarized experience and improvement based on that for Wenchuan earthquake, which can be used as references for treating batches of victims in the emergency department after a disaster.
ObjectiveTo explore the possible association between early injury assessment indexes and the length of stay (LOS) in first-line hospitals, in order to help the hospitals take advantage of resource effectively and transfer victims reasonably during earthquakes. MethodWe retrospectively analyzed the medical information of 3 576 traumatic patients injured in the Wenchuan Earthquake who were transferred to 242 first-line medical institutes between 14:28, May 12th and 14:30, May 19th in 2008. Three kinds of 15 variables were extracted for the analysis, including gender, age, heart or lung disease, pre-hospital time, head injury, trunk injury, open injury, crush injury, asphyxia, body temperature, heart rate, respiration, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and Glasgow coma score. Multiple stepwise linear regression analysis was performed to identify the factors associated with LOS. ResultsThe multiple linear regression analysis showed that age as well as other six factors affected LOS significantly (P<0.05). The partial regression coefficients of age, pre-hospital time, head injury, trunk injury, crush injury, complication of cardiac or pulmonary disease, and Glasgow coma score were -0.062, 0.157, 3.703, 4.111, 12.602, 14.762 and -1.312, respectively. ConclusionsEarthquake trauma patients with older age, long pre-hospital time, head injury, trunk injury, heart or lung disease, crush injury, and lower Glasgow coma score are at increased risk for extended LOS.