Fig. 1

The Chinese Regional Trauma Care System “One region, Two links, Three teams” a Map of China showing the heterogeneous distribution of the population density over the national territory b Characteristics of the Chinese Regional Trauma Care System. The basic unit is a county or a small city including one to two million inhabitants with a level I trauma center in an existing large-scale hospital. The Chinese Regional Trauma Care System provides pre-hospital care from the emergency call center, the emergency care on scene and the transportation, and in-hospital care, which is provided either in a large-scale hospital (served as “level I trauma center”) with the availability of a multidisciplinary team or in five to six small hospitals (served as “trauma care sites”) with the ability to provide basic trauma care. Transfer between trauma care sites and level I trauma centers is possible according to pre-determined triage algorithm, creating “regional close-loop trauma care”. c Map of China showing that the number of level I trauma centers over the national territory in relation to the population density. d In order to balance the development of different regions, take into consideration regional specificities and integrate the trauma centers hierarchically nationwide, the government is proposing a national plan whose implementation will be driven by the National Center for Trauma Medicine. In large regions composed of several provinces, a Regional Medical Center for Trauma and several Provincial Medical Centers for Trauma will be established. Regional level I Trauma Centers which form the basic network of the Chinese Regional Trauma Care System have been mostly established (Fig. 1c) under the direction of the CTRTA