Bring the TSN to your Trauma Center
A traumatic injury can alter life in an instant. Recovery can be long and challenging and requires that resources are in place to meet the physical and emotional needs of both the injured person and their family.
The Trauma Survivors Network (TSN) links survivors and their families with others who have sustained similar injuries and provides support along with resources to enable survivors to rebuild their lives.
As a TSN center, your facility will have the ability to offer a variety of resources to support patients and their families during the recovery process, including:
– Patient and Family Handbook: Provides insight into what to expect in the hours and days after an injury.
– Peer Visitation Program: Connects trauma patients with volunteer trauma survivors who have experienced the aftermath of a serious injury.
– Peer Support Groups: Helps trauma survivors connect with each other.
– NextSteps program: Gives trauma survivors skills to take charge of their recovery and learn how to move forward.
As a member hospital of the TSN you will enjoy the following benefits:
1. Better CARE and outcomes for your patients and their families.
To be successful, a trauma center must provide high quality care in an efficient manner. This requires that patients are rapidly moved through the continuum of care (acute care, rehabilitation, outpatient, and home care). Due to the rapid pace of medical care, payers, and providers, are forced to focus on the medical aspects of care; the psychosocial needs of the patients and their families are often unaddressed. The TSN provides the training and materials you need to establish and successfully maintain programs that address these needs – peer visitation programs, peer support groups, and self-management classes. These programs can be effectively maintained over the long run by engaging volunteers who benefited from the TSN and want to give back.
2. Increased ADVOCACY for trauma systems and injury prevention locally and nationally.
A cornerstone of the TSN strategy is the creation of an extensive network of trauma patients, families and providers who are passionate and committed to making a difference. The TSN will provide you with the mechanism to maintain extended contact with your patients and their families and to build an “network of advocates;” advocates who can orchestrate change locally and nationally. The local trauma center will have capacity to inform and mobilize this constituency to address specific local issues confronting the state legislature, payers, and regulators. Simultaneously, ATS will partner with the network to educate the national audience. The result is the potential for profound change, at the programmatic, policy and regulatory levels. Most important, we will have the unprecedented opportunity to change the public’s perception of trauma as a major threat to our public’s health. It is only by changing the public’s understanding of injury, its causes and treatment, that ATS and the trauma community can become competitive with other disease advocates.
3. Increased opportunities for PHILANTHROPY.
We all face the challenges of fundraising and development for our trauma programs and outreach activities. Trauma is often characterized by a short intensive hospital stay coupled with a long and complex course or recovery. The communication channels provided by the TSN will afford you the opportunity to contact, screen and refer a potential major donor to the development office, while providing the larger number of small donors the opportunity to donate through (insert ATS donations website) website. Many patients and their families who have benefitted from the TSN will want to give back – in volunteer time or monetary donations. The website will help facilitate these opportunities for your patients and families. Proactive marketing of the program outside the hospital will also attract other organizations and businesses who want to help and contribute to the Network.
4. Improved SATISFACTION of your patients and their families.
DROP DOWN Patient and family satisfaction is a major performance metric for all hospitals. The TSN provides several produc] , a customizable Family Handbook, implementation guidebooks and accompanying resources and templates, and virtual support programs for survivors and their families) which when coupled with your local resources, will address “family information starvation” (i.e. What does this mean? How do we cope?) that occurs in the first hours and days post-injury.
Steps to become a TSN Site
1. Become an ATS Institutional Member
2. Sign the TSN Participant Agreement
3. Identify your facility’s TSN Coordinator
4. Participate in an TSN Onboarding Call