TY - JOUR AU - Sharwood, Lisa N. AU - Whyatt, David AU - Vaikuntam, Bharat P. AU - Cheng, Christiana L. AU - Noonan, Vanessa K. AU - Joseph, Anthony P. AU - Ball, Jonathon AU - Stanford, Ralph E. AU - Kok, Mei-Ruu AU - Withers, Samuel R. AU - Middleton, James W. PY - 2021 DA - 2021/04/01 TI - A geospatial examination of specialist care accessibility and impact on health outcomes for patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injury in New South Wales, Australia: a population record linkage study JO - BMC Health Services Research SP - 292 VL - 21 IS - 1 AB - Timely treatment is essential for achieving optimal outcomes after traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI), and expeditious transfer to a specialist spinal cord injury unit (SCIU) is recommended within 24 h from injury. Previous research in New South Wales (NSW) found only 57% of TSCI patients were admitted to SCIU for acute post-injury care; 73% transferred within 24 h from injury. We evaluated pre-hospital and inter-hospital transfer practices to better understand the post-injury care pathways impact on patient outcomes and highlight areas in the health service pathway that may benefit from improvement. SN - 1472-6963 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06235-4 DO - 10.1186/s12913-021-06235-4 ID - Sharwood2021 ER -