Early mortality in polytrauma. A critical analysis of preventable errors

In order to assess the impact of errors on outcome and to identify the rate of preventable deaths we investigated 40 premature deaths that had occurred among polytraumatized patients (blunt trauma; average ISS 53 points) in a prospective study (years 1986-1992) in a level I trauma centre. On analysing the patients' course on the basis of a complete set of data we detected 41 management and timing errors, 15 mistakes in treatment and 8 diagnostic problems. According to the significance of the errors the patients could be divided into three groups: in group 1 (n = 12; 30%) no errors were found, in group 2 (n = 22; 45%) there were errors but these definitely had no influence on the outcome, and in group 3 (n = 6;15%) we ascertained errors with a possible influence on the deaths. In none of the 40 cases of premature death could it be definitely shown that the adverse outcome could have been avoided. In the care of polytraumatized patients there was a clear predominance of management and timing errors insofar as they accounted for 64% of all errors that occurred and had frequently preceded possibly preventable deaths (88% in group 3). To diminish sources of error in the management of polytraumatized patients we must demand that more accurate clinical standards and algorithms be developed and introduced into the treatment of such patients. Language: de