So you need a surgeon? Need for surgeon presence as an alternative metric to predict outcomes and assess triage in the pediatric trauma population

Background: Injury Severity Score (ISS) is the primary metric by which triage has been evaluated in trauma activations. We compared ISS to a previously described set of criteria defined as Need for Surgical Presence (NSP). We hypothesize that NSP may serve as a way to augment ISS in predicting mortality and assessing triage in pediatric trauma patients. Methods: A total of 19,139 pediatric trauma patients in the 2016 National Trauma Quality Improvement Program Database (excluding transfers) had complete data for mortality, mode of transport, age, injury type, ISS, and NSP factors. NSP was defined as having one or more of the following: intubation, transfusion, operation for hemorrhage control/craniotomy, vasopressors, interventional radiology, spinal cord Injury, tube thoracostomy, emergency thoracotomy, intracranial pressure monitor, or pericardiocentesis. Results: Overall mortality was 1.3% and 96% of all patients suffered blunt injury. A total of 2787 (14.6%) patients had an NSP indicator compared to 2036 (10.8%) with an ISS ≥ 16. NSP was noninferior to ISS in predicting mortality with the AUC of 0.91 (95% CI 0.89–0.92) and 0.90 (95% CI 0.88–0.92) respectively. Conclusion: NSP predicts mortality in pediatric trauma patients as well as ISS, and may compliment ISS. NSP status can be assigned shortly after patient arrival. Proper assessment of over and undertriage allows for optimal resource utilization by the medical facility and ultimately benefits the hospital, physician and patient. Study type: Retrospective national dataset study. Level of evidence: Level II.