Trauma Distinction Program

What is the Trauma Distinction Program?

Trauma Distinction Program is a service that Accreditation Canada offers, and that has inspired the content of the Access to Care and Timing (ACT) Workshop. Distinction designation is on a separate, independent cycle from Qmentum accreditation: it is every two years, with different deliverables and milestones. Rather than designating a site as meeting standards of best practice, this designation is of a centre of excellence, an innovator and a leader in the field.

Distinction is awarded for an area of specialized care, rather than to the entire organization like Qmentum accreditation. Currently, Accreditation Canada has a distinction program for stroke care and is also working to release a Trauma distinction program in collaboration with the Trauma Association of Canada, which is targeted for September 2014.

What is particularly exciting about the Trauma distinction program is that it will focus on trauma care throughout the continuum, as an integrated network, effectively following the entire journey of trauma patients, from pre-hospital care, to emergency care, critical care, acute and sub-acute care, and through to rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. Access and flow through all of these transitions is an integral component of understanding and evaluating the patient journey to recognize true excellence and innovation.

Indicator collection is one of the core elements of the distinction program: if an organization chooses to apply for trauma distinction, they will have to demonstrate that they collect the data on an ongoing basis, and that they meet the thresholds, or have initiatives in place to work on meeting the thresholds, for each indicator as defined by Accreditation Canada for their integrated trauma system.

How is this related to the National Action Plan?

The goal of the ACT Workshop was to adapt a number of proposed draft Trauma distinction indicators with revisions to address the particular lens of the SCI population. They will provide a starting point to craft a national strategy to “measure for improvement” that will help better describe and improve the journey of care for persons with SCI across Canada.

For more information on the Trauma Distinction Program, please visit the Accreditation Canada website: accreditation.ca/distinction