As 2008 approaches, there are many Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) activities to update you on:
TRAUMA SUMMIT
On September 29, 2007, the STN participated in the 3rd Trauma Summit, a meeting of the key Trauma Stakeholder Groups. This was the first time that STN, or any nursing group, had been invited to attend this meeting. The purpose of the Summit is to discuss common issues and develop a more effective means of communicating on a national level. Other organizations involved were the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST), Orthopedic Trauma Association, Society for Critical Care Medicine, and Western Trauma Association.
Topics discussed included current trauma-related legislative concerns; advancing the issues identified by the recent Institute of Medicine report; The Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System; the Emergency Surgery initiative; and developing and continuing collaboration among the organizations.
AAST
As the President of STN, I also received an invitation to attend the AAST annual meeting and President's Dinner. At the start of the conference, the AAST President formally recognized 7 organizations and their presidents as invited guests, including STN.
You may have also noticed that every member received a brochure for the conference, a practice that they plan to continue. I encourage everyone to think about adding this conference to your list of potential conferences. The next will be September 24-27, 2008, in Maui, Hawaii. The 2009 meeting will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Approximately 800 participants, primarily surgeons, attended the 2007 conference. The agenda included a number of abstracts addressing clinical and performance improvement topics. Two presessions, the American Trauma Society's 2nd Trauma Program and Screening and Brief Intervention for Trauma Care Providers, were also presented and were well attended.
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR CHILDREN
Another great recognition of STN came from the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) in July of 2007.
The Health Resources Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau's EMSC Program established a stakeholder group in 2003. This group, the EMSC Partnership for Children (PFC) Stakeholder Group, consists of representatives of national healthcare and health-related organizations, EMSC Program grants, and federal programs. These groups are convened to improve the emergency medical care of children through the exchange of knowledge, development of partnerships, and provision of input and counsel to the program.
Every 2 years, stakeholder group membership is reviewed, and selected national organizations, EMSC Program grantees, and federal programs with a stake in pediatric emergency medical care are invited to join the group for the coming biennium. This year, the STN was invited to become a member of the EMSC PFC Stakeholder Group for the July 2007 to June 2009 biennium.
The STN chose Sally Snow, BSN, RN, Trauma Program Manager of Cook Children's Medical Center in Forth Worth, Texas, to act as the STN representative on the group. Sally has been an STN member for a number of years and serves as co-chair of our Pediatric Committee and Special Interest Group. Congratulations, Sally.
The EMSC Program was established by an Act of the United States Congress in 1984 and is designed to ensure state-of-the-art emergency care for ill or injured children and adolescents. The EMSC Program covers the entire spectrum of emergency medical care, including prehospital care, acute care, and rehabilitation.
For more information, please visit the EMSC Program's Web site: http://inchb.hrsa.gov/emsc.
ELECTIONS
By the time you receive this issue, Board of Director elections will be complete. Look for the results on the STN Web page: http://www.traumanurses.org.
TOPIC-M
The Trauma Outcomes and Performance Improvement Course-Military (TOPIC-M) inaugural course was presented in San Antonio on August 19, 2007. The TOPIC-M course was modeled after the TOPIC course developed in 2003 by the STN in response to the need to better understand outcomes management in trauma center development and care. The military approached the STN leadership in January 2006 to create a military specific course, with emphasis on echelons of care and combat casualty-specific case scenarios. TOPIC-M is taught in a 1-day course, with 12 modules followed by military-specific case studies. The curriculum was modified from the original TOPIC course and revised by content experts from various military treatment facilities from Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, with review by the TOPIC Committee.
The inaugural TOPIC-M course included participants from all military branches of service and facilities including members of the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Civilian sectors, as well as many other physicians, nurses and trauma registrars. The participants traveled from Texas, Florida, Ohio, Maryland, District of Columbia, Japan, and Germany. Level 1 and 2 trauma centers were equally represented.
11TH ANNUAL STN CONFERENCE: CONTROVERSIES AND CHALLENGES
Plans are progressing very nicely for our annual conference that will take place in New Orleans on April 9-11, 2008. Highlights of the conference will include 3 presessions, the Business Course for Trauma Care Providers, TOPIC, and a version of the American College for Surgeons Disaster Course to address trauma nurses' needs. Session topics include blast injuries, telemedicine, pediatric posttraumatic stress syndrome, developing leadership in trauma nurses, and the Green Book and beyond. We will once again choose the most cutting edge abstracts for oral presentation.
Of course, the conference will offer the usual great opportunity to network with many nurses who do exactly what you do everyday. Come and meet other trauma program managers, trauma nurse practitioners, trauma staff nurses, and injury prevention, education, and research nurses.
EAST
Once again STN is collaborating with EAST on their annual meeting to take place on January 15-19, 2008, on Amelia Island Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida. Educational sessions that are of interest to all trauma providers, including nurses and physicians, are being planned. Topics will include the new Brain Trauma Foundation Standards, Trauma Data Management, Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention, and others.
Come and enjoy this relaxed, family-oriented conference and the great camaraderie of our EAST physician colleagues. An STN networking reception will once again be held on Thursday evening.
ATCN
Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN) continues to grow. We are now in 24 states within the United States and 6 international countries. The tremendous growth has necessitated that we increase our leadership to include a National Chair person and an International one. Look out for announcements as to who will fill these positions. Other activities include a new manual revision to coincide with the release of the 8th edition of the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) manual. We are also seriously considering our options for streamlining the collection of information that is vital for maintaining ATCN records. Our goal would be to increase accuracy and improve service to all ATCN course providers.
SLIP
The Senior Lifestyles and Injury Prevention (SLIP) program, a CD-ROM-based injury prevention program for older adults, is being completed. Look for it soon!!
ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
The next time that you receive an e-mail from STN, make sure that you open it. We have begun to send all members an electronic newsletter on a regular basis. It includes brief but interesting news on STN activities. We want to make sure that you are aware of all of the great things going on in STN.
JTN
As JTN celebrates its 10th anniversary, we continue to make changes and improvements. As you have been hearing from your editor, Katherine Schroeter, JTN has moved to Editorial Manager, an online submission and review system. It allows authors worldwide to submit manuscripts online, using an Internet connection. It shortens time from submission to the decision to publish and allows the authors the ability to track their manuscript online.
Look for more information as we transition and watch for a live demonstration of the software at the Annual Conference in New Orleans.