Direct transport versus inter-hospital transfer of trauma victims in the Brazilian Emergency Medical System

INTRODUCTION: The Brazilian medical emergency services presented a significant development due to the investment in emergency care units, increasing the expansion of the services. However, there was a surge in need for secondary patient transfers, which served as the common link in a wide web of tertiary hospital access. This study aimed to assess the outcome of trauma patients who required secondary transfer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This prospective observational cross-sectional study included 2302 patients (565 from the study group and 1737 from the control group) and compared the outcome of patients hospitalized for trauma referred by secondary transfer or those who directly visited the Emergency Unit of the municipality with a Brazilian medical emergency system. RESULTS: As for the trauma mechanism, there was a predominance of blunt trauma (93.32 %), 34.5 % were elderly, 12.45 % suffered severe traumatic brain injury, and 18.44 % had severe trauma rate (injury severity score > 15). The outcome of death did not present a significant difference between the groups, even when evaluated considering possible risk factors, such as the elderly age (over 65 years of age) and trauma index. CONCLUSION: There was no significant difference in terms of the outcome of death in patients who underwent secondary transfer and those with direct access to medical emergency services. However, patients who underwent secondary transfer had an increase in the length of hospital stay.