National Trauma Meeting 2008

The Trauma Survivor Network rolled out officially at the American Trauma Society’s annual National Trauma Meeting, held April 24th, 25th and 26th 2008. In development for the last several years, the TSN represents a true paradigm shift for trauma survivors everywhere. Whether your trauma injury was 3 months ago or 30 years ago, this program has great value to trauma survivors everywhere. Currently, there are several trauma centers adopting the program, but there is much work to do in convincing every single trauma center across the country of the value and necessity of this program. 

The 3 day event was attended by over 70 attendees from trauma centers that have committed to implementation of the Trauma Survivors Network in their local setting, and the meeting was completely centered on introduction of the Trauma Survivors Network and included training on all the components of the program.

Trauma survivors can and should play an important role in this. As a matter of advocacy trauma survivors and their families need to champion the cause within their local context to make sure the local level 1and 2 trauma centers understand the needs of trauma survivors after their initial care; and how the Trauma Survivors Network can meet those needs. Specifically, what the Trauma Survivors Network provides are:

• Survivor Group — the group setting is essentially an environment where recent and long-term survivors can gather and discuss the issues they are facing. This is one of the core components in that it will feed the peer visitation program through membership by long-time trauma survivors; bringing their wisdom and their own answers to sometimes complex issues that new survivors face. The group element is also very important as a source for and training of new peer visitation team members. This component is designed to be facilitated by a long-time trauma survivor.
• Peer Visitation — coupled with a group environment, the peer visitation component will train and provide long time trauma survivors for peer visitations to trauma survivors currently in that respective trauma center. Survivors have stated over and over that the peer visitation program is one of the most fulfilling ways to give back to the community in general if in no other way than demonstrating to hospitalized trauma survivors that there is light at the end of the very long tunnel some of them face.
• Next Steps — This nine week course is designed offered to recent trauma survivors. It supplies ideas and training that build the skills needed to assimilate back into work and society Participants will learn some great skills for getting on with their lives in general. This training course is also designed to be facilitated by a long time trauma survivor and taught in most cases by a trauma healthcare professional..
• Web Site — one of the more important facets of the program, TraumaSurvivorNetwork.org will serve many purposes; the primary purpose will be an adjunct to the program in individual trauma centers. Participating trauma centers will be given their own “place” on the site where trauma survivors and their family will find tools and information vital to understanding the life altering event they are thrust in the middle of. There will also be access for a general audience that extends well beyond recent trauma survivors within the current program to long time trauma survivors, particularly within the context of the forums (or bulletin boards). This will be a place regardless of affiliation with a particular trauma center or lack of one, where people in all stages of the process of surviving trauma can come together and help each other. It will be a place where people can feel free to speak out on their situations and find help from those that have walked a mile in their shoes. 
  • The American Trauma Society has partnered with CarePages to provide the immediate family the ability to set up a blog on CarePages for free. This blogging environment will serve as a great too for the immediate family because they can use their CarePage as a tool to keep family and friends informed of the progress of their loved one through their blog. This is of great benefit to them, because by spending the time they would on one or two phone calls, they can keep everyone up-to-date on what is going on with their loved one. This significantly cuts down on the need to make the huge amount of phone calls that are usually necessary in this situation to keep everyone informed. The CarePages can be kept private and can be viewed by invitation in those cases.
• Second Trauma — The American Trauma Society fully recognizes that trauma victimizes more than the trauma survivor, it is a huge challenge to the loved ones of that survivor as well. Especially considering that the “news” they receive can be so life changing; a death, a permanent life altering disability, a loss of cognitive function due to traumatic brain injury, there is a whole host of “bad news” that the loved ones face as they rush into that trauma center for the first time. Second Trauma regognizes that and is a full orbed program to insure that hospital staff is fully aware of the impact on families. The training that the Second Trauma component provides training for the front line trauma care providers in the need for early, compassionate communication.

Trauma has been the one disease without any kind of organized structure in place to help survivors beyond the environment of the trauma center. The American Trauma Society has the vision and motivation to fix that once and for all. The good news is, they have put together a program so comprehensive and far-reaching, that it can no longer be said that help is not available.

To the long time trauma survivors out there—this is your challenge; to become a voice demanding that this program be implemented in your local trauma center. I invite each and every one of you to use the American Trauma Society’s trauma center lookup tool (found to the left hand side of their home page) to find the closest level 1 or 2 trauma center in your area, contact them and let it be known that they need to be a part of this life changing program. Note that not every trauma center is listed there, due mostly to the fact that the ATS depends on trauma centers to give them good contact information, so if yours isn’t listed, that might be another question for them when you do contact them. There will be “selling” tools on the TSN website as well as this one to help in showing the powers that be in every single trauma center exactly what benefits there are not just to trauma survivors, but the trauma centers themselves. The first two questions any trauma center will ask is “what does it cost” and “what’s in it for our trauma center”. With respect to the former, it would be best for them to contact the American Trauma Society directly. For the latter, the benefits the trauma centers will see as a direct result of fully implementing this program in their trauma center are far reaching. We will soon have specific information up on the matter. Let’s just say that beyond the vast direct benefit to the trauma survivors themselves, there is the potential for some very significant benefits to the trauma centers themselves in some of the most important things they measure in terms of outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Be watching this site. We intend to list every trauma center that has taken part in the roll out of the trauma survivors network soon on this site. The plan at this point is to roll out the TSN web site (http://www.traumasurvivorsnetwork.org) the early part of june, which will be concurrent with many of these trauma centers being ready to roll out a component or two by that time. Once that occurs, that will be the best resource for survivors and their families to see if there is a trauma center in their area with the program.

Emotionally, trauma is one of the most difficult things for people to overcome. The only way to truly bring an end to this needless emotional suffering that so many survivors go through is to get yourself involved to be a part of the solution. Above all, join the TraumaSurvivor.org. web site and let your voice be heard. We finally have a place where we can go and each of us be change agents in our own corner of the planet. The reward will be great, of that, I can assure you. 

This constitutes a paradigm shift in trauma care. For trauma centers, it offers many of the outcomes that they want from the care they give; better outcomes, shorter stays, much improved patient satisfaction with care, and even increases the opportunities for philanthropy. Given the small amount of resources hospitals will have to commit to the program, it should be a win/win proposition for everyone involved; hospitals and the trauma patients alike.

We hope to see each and every trauma survivor out there reading this article to come to the Trauma Survivors Network website and to join in the forums. If you have no other resource out there to help you navigate the task of surviving trauma, this is a great start.