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Wrist, hand and finger trauma are the most common injuriespresenting to emergency departments nationwide, yet only 7 percentof Tennessee hospitals have a hand specialist on call 24/7 to treatthese patients, according to a Vanderbilt study published onlinetoday in the Annals of Plastic Surgery. Patients from Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama aretraveling long distances to Vanderbilt University Medical Centerfor treatment and follow-up care. Wesley Thayer, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Plastic Surgery,and of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, surveyed 119Tennessee hospitals that have both an operating room and anemergency room and found that 58 percent of these hospitals dooffer at least basic emergency coverage for hand injuries while 42percent offer no emergency coverage at all for these injuries. Thayer added that roughly 80 percent of the hospitals surveyedoffer elective, or non-emergent hand surgery. "I was surprised that most Tennessee hospitals are able to offerelective hand surgery but only 7 percent of them have a handspecialist on call 24/7 to treat emergency injuries to the hand,"Thayer said. "There are a lot of injuries that actually need tocome here to Vanderbilt, but I just hate it when I feel likesomebody has traveled an incredibly long way for an injury thatprobably could have been treated locally." Thayer said he commonly sees injuries such as an open fracture - a cut with a broken bone beneath it - that any trained handspecialist could repair, on average, in less than two hours. "These injuries are common to the blue-collar working man or woman,industry workers getting fingers caught in presses or rollingmachines, weekend warriors with a skill saw hurt while doing homerepairs, or getting a hand caught in a belt or fan blade whileworking on the car," Thayer said. Not even Memphis, one the largest cities in the Southeast, has ahand specialist on call 24/7, although wrist, hand or fingerinjuries account for 11.6 percent of all traumatic injuries treatedin emergency departments, according to the study. "I believe this is almost certainly a national problem because wefrequently have requests from, for example, Arkansas, Mississippi,or Alabama, where a patient needs a finger replanted, or at leastevaluated for a potential replant, and there is no one available inthe whole state to consider a replant." Thayer suggests one way to combat the problem would be forhospitals to have dialogue between their emergency departments,trauma services and hand services to set up cross coverage for callthat might make it more convenient for patients to get care in alocal setting. "The real concern that I have is that, for some reason, there mightbe an evolution of hand surgery away from providing emergency care,where people are simply providing elective hand surgery, having abusy, successful practice, but might not, for one reason or theother, be providing their community with emergent hand surgery." The study also found an increased private insurance payer mix inhospitals that have hand surgeons available for call. Also,hospitals that have more than four hand surgeons have a 67 percentchance of having someone on call 24/7. "I certainly don't want people to get the idea that I feel likethere are people out there who are refusing to treat these cases; Iactually think that there are not enough hand surgeons in thecommunity," Thayer said. "I really think the solution is simple. I think that hospitalsshould have trained hand specialists on call at their hospital,particularly if they are going to offer elective hand surgery." Additional References Citations. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Electric ARC Furnaces Manufacturer , China Continuous Casting Machine for Steel for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Billet Casting Machine.
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