Improving Family-Centered Pediatric Trauma Care: The Standard of Care Versus the Virtual Pediatric Trauma Center, California, 2020-2022

The current standard of care in the treatment of children with physical trauma presenting to non-designated pediatric trauma centers is consultation with a pediatric trauma center by telephone. This includes contacting a pediatric trauma specialist and transferring any child with a potentially serious injury to a regionalized Level I pediatric trauma center. This approach to care frequently results in medically unnecessary transfers and may place undue burdens on families. A newer model of care, the Virtual Pediatric Trauma Center (VPTC), uses telemedicine to make the expertise of a Level I pediatric trauma center virtually available to any hospital. The VPTC is a model of care that utilizes telemedicine for acutely injured children presenting to non-pediatric trauma center hospitals to obtain consultations from pediatric trauma specialists. While the use of the VPTC model of care is increasing, there have been no comparisons of the VPTC to standard care of injured children at non-designated trauma centers with respect to patient- and family-centered outcomes. The goal of this study is to compare the current standard of care to the VPTC with respect to family-centered outcomes developed by parents and community advisory boards.