These roles and responsibilities are taken from the Trauma services model of care.
They reflect the roles described in the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Trauma Verification Program: Model Resource Criteria for Trauma Services by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.6
Trauma service positions
Additional major trauma service positions
Deputy trauma director
Trauma fellow or senior registrar
District trauma coordinator
Quality improvement and research support officer
Trauma service clerical staff
Trauma director
Qualification
Fellow in recognised specialist college with a subspecialty qualification or demonstrated clinical, research and education interest in trauma management.
Responsibilities
- Provides medical leadership, governance and direction with respect to trauma care at local, regional and statewide levels.
- Is available on-site to lead trauma team resuscitation, daily trauma clinical rounds and supports relevant on-call arrangements.
- Daily ensures the highest quality of care is delivered to all patients admitted under the trauma service, including compliance with all local and statewide policies and processes of care.
- Chairs or contributes substantially to monthly hospital and network trauma committees.
- Engages with monthly ITIM and national trauma committees.
- Engages in trauma-related research on local, regional and statewide levels.
- Leads clinical governance and quality improvement activities, including monthly morbidity and mortality reviews.
- Leads weekly multidisciplinary trauma unit meetings and education sessions.
- Supervises medical and nursing staff working under the trauma service, including team evaluations and performance reviews.
- Engages in medical student and post graduate education and training in trauma management.
- Engages in other hospital committees related to trauma care (disaster, blood transfusion management, radiology) to improve stakeholder engagement and trauma advocacy.
- Maintains clinical practice and professional development relevant to trauma practice and relevant area of specialisation.
Trauma fellow or senior registrar
Responsibilities
- Works closely with senior clinical staff to deliver clinical care to trauma patients.
- Ensures patient care meets minimum standards with respect to trauma team resuscitation, post-operative care and clinical documentation.
- Participates in trauma research and quality improvement activities relevant to their area of expertise and training.
- Leads trauma unit meetings and daily clinical rounds.
- Coordinates trauma education sessions and programs relevant to their area of expertise and training.
Trauma coordinator
Qualifications
Clinical nurse consultant level 3 or equivalent with a demonstrated post graduate qualification or clinical, research or education interest in trauma management.
Responsibilities
- Provides daily clinical leadership in trauma care at a local, regional and statewide levels.
- Participates in trauma resuscitation as a senior nursing team leader, daily clinical rounds and case reviews.
- Ensures that all local and statewide trauma related policies and processes of care are being followed on patients admitted under the trauma service, including tertiary surveys, transfer of care, coordination of subspecialty consultations and discharge planning.
- Audits compliance with trauma policies for quality assurance and facility accreditation, using established trauma registries.
- Leads and coordinates trauma education programs at local, regional and statewide levels.
- Leads and coordinates weekly trauma nursing in-service sessions for wards and emergency department.
- Facilitates trauma-related research on local, regional and statewide levels.
- Leads quality improvement activities including morbidity and mortality reviews.
District trauma coordinator
Qualifications
Clinical nurse consultant level 3 or equivalent with a demonstrated post graduate qualification or clinical, research or education interest in trauma management.
Responsibilities
- Provides clinical leadership in trauma care across trauma referral networks.
- Coordinates trauma referral networks and ensures relevant referral pathways are being followed in accordance with NSW critical care and trauma referral networks.
- Conducts clinical in-service and education across networked facilities.
- Audits trauma care at networked facilities and reports on individual and aggregate trauma data at these facilities.
- Supports trauma research and quality improvement activities across trauma referral networks.
Quality improvement and research support officer
Responsibilities
- Assists the trauma service to conduct research projects, performs quantitative data analyses relevant to quality improvement and research using the trauma registry.
- Collates data using screening tool required for statewide trauma death review program and enrolling patients for NSW TORQUE on a weekly basis.
- Assists with trauma audits and case reviews in relation to clinical incidents.
- Reports all process and relevant local key performance indicators to the hospital trauma committee monthly.
- Assists with data collection for research and quality improvement initiatives at a local and statewide level.
Trauma case manager
Qualifications
Clinical nurse specialist level 2.
Responsibilities
- Provides senior nursing support in the emergency department and inpatient units, including intensive care unit and case management for trauma patients.
- Ensures patient management meets minimum standards and process indicators.
- Conducts daily trauma case review and audit of all trauma patients with respect to local and statewide trauma process indicators.
- Facilitates quality assurance by reviewing cases and abstracting data relevant to local and statewide trauma datasets.
- Communicates with other trauma service members when clinical issues arise.
Trauma registrar
Responsibilities
- Participates in trauma resuscitation and daily ward management.
- Conducts trauma tertiary surveys, completes clinical tasks related to routine clinical care daily, supervised by the trauma director or deputy director.
- Liaises with senior trauma clinical staff regarding clinical issues arising from trauma patient management, including discharge planning, transfer of care, analgesia, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis and follow up of imaging and pathology results.
- Participates in and assists with trauma related education for clinical staff and medical students.
- Participates in trauma research and quality improvement activities relevant to their area of expertise and training.
Deputy trauma director
Can be a co-director with the trauma director.
Responsibilities
- Assists trauma director with respect to role delegation and ensuring daily adequate senior medical coverage for trauma patients at major trauma centres.
- Participates in trauma team resuscitation, daily trauma clinical rounds and participates in relevant on-call arrangements.
- Provides support for trauma service staff supervision and performance reviews.
- Participates in trauma research and quality improvement activities.
Trauma data officer
Responsibilities
- Ensures data is entered weekly and up to date for all trauma patients meeting minimum dataset criteria.
- Abstracts clinical and trauma service documentation required for the statewide trauma registry (NSW TORQUE) and Australian trauma registry.
- Ensures data quality and performs monthly validation completeness checks.
- Ensures trauma service compliance with current NSW trauma minimum dataset requirements.
- Performs audits of process indicators on all trauma-related admissions.
- Prepares monthly activity and outcomes reports for the hospital trauma committee.
- Analyses and reports on local trauma activity and relevant local and statewide process indicators, using data from the trauma registry.
- Queries local trauma registry data and uses related data visualisation tools to generate ad hoc reports as requested by trauma clinicians and quality improvement initiatives teams.
Trauma service clerical staff
Responsibilities
- Provides administrative support to the trauma service.