OBJECTIVETo study the emergency management principles of severe trauma in hospital (injury severity score larger than or equal to 16).

METHODSWe used "ATP principle" to manage severe traumatic patients. The ATP principle is composed of: 1) attending surgeons offering initial management (A); 2) teamwork commencement immediately after patients admitted to hospital (T); 3) parallel principle, ie, emergency resuscitation, evaluation and laboratory test performed simultaneously (P). Clinical effects before and after applying ATP principle were retrospectively analyzed and compared.

RESULTSDuring January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2003, 338 patients were treated without applying ATP principle, in which ISS was 25.9+/-6.4, 152 cases died with the mortality being 39.2%, and the time stayed in emergency department and the time to operation room after admission were (102.8+/-16.7) min, (140.3+/-20.6) min, respectively. During January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2005, 438 patients were treated based on ATP principle, in which ISS was 28.6+/-7.8, 87 cases died with the mortality being 19.9%, and the time in emergency department and the time to operation room after admission were (69.5+/-11.5) min, (89.6+/-9.3) min, respectively. ISS showed no significant difference between the two groups (P larger than 0.05) but the mortality, the time stayed in emergency department and the time to operation room after admission were greatly reduced and showed significant difference between the two groups (P less than 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSApplying ATP principle to treat severe traumatic patients can shorten emergency treatment time in hospital and decrease mortality.