Citation

Engel DC, Mikocka-Walus A, Cameron PA, Maegele M. Injury 2011; 42(11): 1391.

Affiliation

Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Institute for Research in Operative Medicine (IFOM), University of Witten-Herdecke, Cologne, Germany; Department of Traumatology and Orthopedic Surgery, Cologne-Merheim Medical Centre (CMMC), University of Witten-Herdecke, Cologne, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.injury.2011.05.027

PMID

21700285

Abstract

We thank the authors for pointing out the differences in pre-hospital management within Australia. The article, 'Pre-hospital and in-hospital parameters and outcomes in patients with traumatic brain injury: A comparison between German and Australian trauma registries', published in Injury last year (Int. J. Care Injured 41 (2010) 901–906) used data solely from the Australian state of Victoria. We are aware of the differences between Australian states in management of trauma and apologise for calling the Victorian model a unified Australian model. Nonetheless, because Australian states act rather autonomously in pre-hospital management, a state can be interpreted as a closed population and compared with other populations, such as Germany. A comparison between Germany and populations from other countries, that are more similar to other Australian states will be published in the future. Preliminary results show a trend that this model operating with specialist-physician leadership also leads to lower mortality than the German model described in the above mentioned article.

Language: en