AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ESO, a leading data services and software provider for EMS, fire departments, hospitals, and state and federal agencies, today released findings from the 2024 ESO Trauma Index. Now in its fourth year, the index analyzed 975,433 de-identified patient records for calendar year 2023 from 576 participating hospitals nationwide that use ESO services.

The index includes nine measures, examining whole blood use, blood component therapy, open long bone fractures, hip fractures, penetrating trauma, injury severity score and mortality, hospital events, time to transfer and mechanism of injury. The final two metrics are new to the 2024 edition of the report, as is the introduction of data on the pediatric population and trauma related to firearms.

“This index serves to focus attention on areas of national concern, including the fact that falls are the leading cause of traumatic injury and the notable number of pediatric patients who are victims of interpersonal violence,” said Brent Myers, M.D., MPH, chief medical officer for ESO. “Additionally, from a systems-of-care perspective, we see the need to further evaluate the appropriate use of whole blood in both the prehospital and trauma center settings.”

Mechanism of injury: Falls lead across all ages, pediatric patients more likely to report interpersonal violence
In examining the mechanism of injury for the first time, the index found that:

• Falls are the leading cause of trauma at 52% across all age groups. Collectively, falls, motor vehicle crashes and struck by/against account for 74% of all trauma injuries.
• According to the data, pediatric patients are 115 times more likely to report experiencing interpersonal violence than adults, which could be the result of underreporting of physical violence among older populations.
• Firearms are the fourth most common cause of trauma injury for adults and fifth for children.
  

Time to transfer: The faster out the door, the better
The index also assessed time to transfer—the minutes between when an order is written for a patient’s transfer and when that patient leaves—from emergency departments (EDs) to trauma centers as well as from a lower-level trauma center to a higher one. Findings include:

• The median transfer time from an emergency department to a higher-level trauma facility was 78 minutes, with interquartile times ranging from 63 to 84 minutes.
• The median time to transfer from an inpatient setting was almost double at 141 minutes.

Time to administration of antibiotics decreases for patients with open long bone fractures
Overall, the data also indicate a positive trend in the administration of antibiotics to patients with open long bone fractures. It is an established best practice to deliver antibiotics within 60 minutes of a patient’s arrival at a trauma center to reduce the chance of infection. The report, which also accounted for prehospital administration, found that:

• 70% of the 44,115 patients with diagnosed open long bone fractures received antibiotics within an hour, with a median time to administration of 23 minutes. This is up from 67% in 2023 and 63% in 2021, indicating growth in the awareness and implementation of best practices in a hospital setting as well as in EMS clinical response.
• Pediatric patients are less likely to receive antibiotics than adults for the third consecutive year.

“This year’s data set is the most comprehensive we have analyzed in the four years ESO has conducted this report,” said Eric Beck, DO, MPH, EMT-P, president and CEO of ESO. “In medicine and particularly in trauma—where every second counts—standardized data, metrics and benchmarks are critical in helping clinicians evaluate performance and drive improvement. Our goal at ESO is to share best practices and continue to empower the entire care team using outcomes to enhance the quality of care.”

The report, which is free to access, is designed for hospitals, emergency departments and Level I to IV trauma centers to benchmark their performance and identify areas for continuous improvement in quality of care and across operations. ESO is the leading industry data services provider to include information from and about Level III and IV trauma centers, which are typically based in rural areas and smaller communities that lack the resources or patient volume to warrant a higher-level trauma center.

To access the 2024 ESO Trauma Index, click here. To learn more about ESO, visit www.eso.com.

Methodology and Limitations
The data set for the 2024 ESO Trauma Index is real-world, de-identified data, compiled and aggregated from hospital admissions between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023. This ESO Trauma Index includes 975,433 patient records from 576 participating hospitals that use ESO services and agreed to have their de-identified data used for research purposes. The ESO Trauma Index is created from the ESO Data Collaborative, the world’s largest de-identified trauma registry data sets available at no cost. The 2024 ESO Trauma Index follows the 2023 American College of Surgeons National Trauma Data Standards. The data set is raw, containing no risk adjustment or other manipulations. The index is not a scientific analysis nor is it peer-reviewed; it is intended to be informational and directional. The data are not comprehensive, and there are no universal rules designed around the measures.

About ESO
ESO (ESO Solutions, Inc.) is dedicated to improving community health and safety through the power of data. Since its founding in 2004, the company continues to pioneer innovative, user-friendly software to meet the changing needs of today’s EMS agencies, fire departments, hospitals, and state and federal offices. ESO currently serves thousands of customers across the globe with a broad software portfolio, including the industry-leading ESO Electronic Health Record (EHR), the next-generation ePCR; ESO Health Data Exchange (HDE), the first-of-its-kind health care interoperability platform; ESO Fire RMS, the modern fire Record Management System; ESO Patient Registry (trauma, burn and stroke registry software); and ESO State Repository. ESO is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.eso.com.

Media Contact:
Emma Chase
Red Fan Communications
eso@redfancommunications.com
512-917-4319