Excess Mortality, Length of Stay, and Costs Associated with Serious Hemorrhage among Trauma Patients: Findings from the National Trauma Data Bank®

Abstract

Trauma is a serious injury or shock to the body from violence or crash and is an important and growing global health risk. Using 2000 to 2004 data from a comprehensive trauma registry, we estimated the prevalence of serious blunt and penetrating trauma-related hemorrhage among patients admitted to U.S. trauma centers along with excess in-hospital mortality, length of hospital stay, and inpatient costs. There were 65,750 patients with blunt trauma and 12,992 patients with penetrating trauma included in our analyses. Of patients sustaining blunt trauma, 7.6 per cent had serious hemorrhage; 18.8 per cent of patients sustaining penetrating trauma had serious hemorrhage. In-hospital mortality rates were significantly ( P < 0.05) higher for patients with serious hemorrhage than for patients without (24.9 per cent versus 8.4 per cent for blunt; 23.4 per cent versus 4.2 per cent for penetrating). Patients with serious hemorrhage had adjusted mean excess lengths of stay of 0.4 days for blunt trauma and 2.7 days for penetrating trauma ( P < 0.05); adjusted excess costs were $296 per day for patients sustaining blunt trauma and $637 per day for patients sustaining penetrating trauma ( P < 0.05). In both blunt and penetrating trauma cases, serious hemorrhage is significantly associated with excess mortality, longer hospital stays, and higher costs.