Decreasing the cost of trauma care: a system of secondary inhospital triage.

The financial realities of the current health care arena make it imperative that deliverers of trauma care initiate programs that reduce the cost of trauma. Triage can be one process that attempts to attain this goal. Once patients are assigned to a Level I trauma center, it is possible to triage patients again to complement field triage. A two-tiered, inhospital trauma response system was developed in which different team responses are initiated depending on the patient status. This tiered, in-house response system differs with respect to human and material resources. Personnel, operating room, laboratory work, and protective wear savings account for approximately $1,042 per code patient, yielding an annual $629,404 institutional savings.