Improving the field triage of major trauma victims.

The Trauma Scores, CRAMS scales, and mechanisms of injury of 500 trauma patients were evaluated for their ability to identify a seriously injured patient.With the addition of specific mechanisms of injury, the sensitivity of a field Trauma Score of <14 could be improved from 45% to 75%, with a reasonable specificity of 40%. The addition of these mechanisms of injury to standard field triage scoring appears to improve the identification of seriously injured patients while retaining an acceptable level of overtriage.