Trauma care systems in The Netherlands

Abstract

In the late 1980s the Dutch trauma surgeons (Dutch Trauma Society) expressed their concern about the quality of care to the (multi) trauma patients, in the prehospital as well as the in-hospital setting. The following intensive debate with the public health inspectorate and the government became the start point for major improvements in teaching and training (a.o. ATLS), reorganization, regionalization and implementation in which all partners in trauma care were involved. The regionalization of ambulance care, the introduction of mobile medical teams, the availability of trauma helicopters, the categorization of hospitals, the designation of trauma centres, the given responsibility of these centres in the regionalization of trauma care will and already have resulted in an important quality improvement, not only of the individual organizations but for all of the entire chain of trauma care. It has become a major step forward in the philosophy: get the individual trauma patient at the right time at the right hospital. Besides, initiatives have been taken to design a nationwide trauma registration data base in which all in-hospital trauma patients will be included. However serious concerns remain: shortage of intensive care beds, the impossibility to use the helicopter service at night, the shortage in the number of mobile medical teams at night and the slowness in executions of agreements between contracting parties. Many of the remaining problems are a matter of money. Not only (para) medical partners and hospitals but for all government and insurance companies should take their responsibility in this.