Office phone No.: +886-2- 2312-3456 ext. 262501, 262557

Fax No.: +886-2-2322-2890

Email:   s711330@ntuh.gov.tw

Department Profile

Among the top ten leading causes of death in Taiwan, trauma has been the third-highest in terms of mortality rate. Taiwan also leads the world in mortality associated with trauma. As the country’s economy flourishes, trauma service in emergency medicine has become an important matter.

 

To address this need, the Department of Traumatology was established at the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) in September 2001 by attending doctors from the Surgery, Orthopedics and Emergency Medicine Departments, with the full support of the hospital’s Superintendent. A young but vital force at NTUH, Department of Traumatology now boasts the most comprehensive trauma team in Taiwan and aims to provide round-the-clock medical services to patients sustaining major trauma who may not otherwise receive the necessary help.

 

In February 2005, the NTUH trauma team established intensive care unit of Trauma, the first in the country to introduce the double overhead suspension arms system for intensive care, an apparatus capable of carrying a variety of instruments such as respirators, vital signs monitors and IV pumps, with better cables and tubes management and more flexible space utilization. The suspension poles are equipped with built-in, high-throughput data network cables to enable integration of comprehensive medical information and electronic medical records. The hospital bed equipped with the system is set aside the postoperative recovery room, and in the event that the ICU reaches full capacity, with this particular bed in use, the recovery room may be utilized to accommodate ICU patients, so that they do not have to be transferred to other hospitals and suffer from delayed treatment due to ICU bed shortage.

 

As the general healthcare environment changed, the sharp increase in the number of patients that required further observation in the emergency room resulted in hospital bed shortage. As a result, an integrated ward opened in October 2009 for further care of the patients discharged from ICU. NTUH’s first electronic whiteboard system was set up in this ward, which uses computer information to effectively control and improve the quality of care and the ward’s operation.
 

Scope of Services

• Trauma-related services include caring for urgent and critical surgical patients from trauma, and also admitting patients referred by other hospitals.
• The care of surgical patients with various urgent and critical care needs is provided by attending doctors, who are also responsible for supervising residents’ work and their actual participation in patient care.
• We provide training to various surgical and critical care professionals, including doctors and the nursing staff.

 

Key Medical Care Services

For surgical patients with various urgent and critical care needs, we assess  their conditions in a timely manner, stabilize their conditions, and provide appropriate care, including surgical treatments and postoperative care.

 

We also provide basic life support (BLS), advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and advanced trauma life support (ATLS) to all patients in need of emergency care.

 

We also follow up on our critically ill patients after emergency treatment and provide the following:

• Care for patients requiring surgery or hospitalization.
• Continued care for patients hospitalized for observation.
• Integrated care for critically ill patients.
• Palliative care for cancer and non-cancer terminal patients.

 

Medical Services

The Department of Traumatology has also teamed up with the Department of Surgery to create a trauma team, whose member surgeons work together and utilize their specialties to provide quality care for trauma patients.

 

Traumatology

• Multiple trauma, trauma critical care

General surgery

• Abdominal penetrating injury with intraperitoneal hemorrhage or suspected hollow organ trauma.
• Apparent symptoms of peritoneal disorder.
• Blunt trauma with pneumoperitoneum or hemoperitoneum.

 

Cardiovascular surgery

• Damage to the heart, damage to major blood vessels, traumatic myocarditis.

Cardiothoracic surgery

• Pneumothorax, hemothorax, rib fracture, chest contusion, respiratory tract injury.

Neurosurgery

• Compleated head trauma, spine or spinal cord injury, peripheral nerve injury.

Plastic surgery

• Burns and scalds
• Hand injuries: hand fracture, hand tendon rupture, traumatic amputation.
• Other types of injury: affecting the flap circulation, skin defects which make direct suture impossible, animal bites.
• Facial traumas: deep tissue injury, facial bone fracture.
• Limb-threatening conditions: peripheral arterial injury, traumatic amputation, compartment syndrome, peripheral nerve injury.