Starship Trauma Service
Who we are
The Starship Trauma Service was first established in the early 1990s and to date remains the only dedicated Paediatric Trauma Service in New Zealand.
The Starship Trauma Service provides emergency treatment, definitive care, and rehabilitation for New Zealand’s most severely injured children.
The Starship Trauma Service also takes an active role in trauma prevention, education, and research.
The role and function of the Starship Trauma Service involves:
Trauma clinical quality activities - internal and external
Development and implementation of paediatric trauma guidelines and protocols
Clinical case management and advice
Data collection, evaluation, and dissemination
Research
Education - internal and external
Injury prevention activities
Management of trauma patients at Starship
Injured children presenting to Starship Children’s Emergency Department are assessed and managed by a multi-disciplinary Trauma Team that is activated via a Paediatric Trauma Call.
The Starship Trauma Service has also developed a Paediatric Code Crimson Call to facilitate early collaborative decision making between senior clinicians caring for patients presenting to Starship Children’s Emergency Department with acute life-threatening injuries.
Following admission to Starship, trauma patients continue to be managed by a multi-disciplinary team with expertise drawn from the specialties of Intensive Care, Surgery, Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery, Allied Health, nursing, and support staff as required.
Inter-hospital transfers
As a tertiary referral centre most of the trauma admissions to Starship originate from outside the Children’s Emergency Department. To gain advice and/or seek information about the appropriate receiving team for a paediatric trauma patient contact 0800 4 Trauma (option 2 for Paediatrics).
Trauma data registry
The Starship Trauma Service collects data for several different trauma registries. The Starship Hospital Trauma Registry was established in 2006 and collects data on all paediatric trauma patients admitted to Starship for management of their injuries regardless of severity. Data regarding all major trauma patient admissions is also submitted to the New Zealand Trauma Registry. This data is used to help drive injury prevention programs, quality initiatives and guideline development.
Major trauma criteria
To be defined as a major trauma admission one or more of the following criteria must be met:
Injury Severity Score (ISS) of greater than 15 (AIS ‘98) or greater than 12 (AIS ‘15) (for national trauma registry).
Admission to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
Death because of injury
Exclusion criteria
Injuries that are the result of pathological conditions
Late trauma transfers. Where a patient is transferred from another hospital where his/her initial treatment was expected to have been definitive.
Admission for injuries that occurred one week or more prior to the time of presentation to hospital
Admissions to the day stay unit that require no overnight stay
Admissions for complications associated with an injury (e.g. cellulitis from a minor laceration)
Hanging & drowning (only excluded from the national registry)
For further information on the Trauma Registry at Starship please contact Matt Sawyer at msawyer@adhb.govt.nz
Clinical guidelines
Clinical guidelines have been developed to guide standardised acute paediatric trauma care in New Zealand and to provide concise, practical advice to clinicians involved in the management of severely injured paediatric patients. These are listed above under Trauma.
Injury prevention
The Starship Trauma Service has strong connections with Safe Kids Aotearoa and more information about the work they do can be found here.
Starship Trauma Service contacts
Dr Jonathan McMillan
Co-Director Starship Trauma Service & Paediatric Emergency Specialist
jmcmillan@adhb.govt.nz
Matt Sawyer
Trauma Clinical Nurse Specialist
msawyer@adhb.govt.nz