PROTECT-Wazee: Improving care for older adult trauma patients in Tanzania: guideline adaptation for low -resource setting

ABSTRACT Trauma kills nearly 4.4 million people every year globally with 95% of deaths in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs).The World Health Organization predicts 80% of older people (>60 years) will be living in LMIC by 2050. Like many LMIC, older adults have more than double the mortality rate, longer hospital stays and worse functional outcomes compared to all trauma patients after acute injuries at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. While high income settings have created clinical practice guidelines to standardize and improve care, resources in these guidelines are unavailable and their implementation is challenged by cultural practice. This proposal will adapt a high resource setting clinical practice guideline for managing older adult trauma patients to make it more appropriate and feasible for a lower resourced setting. This project will benefit Tanzanias with a guideline to standardize and improve care, but also all older adult patients of lower resource settings as we create a flexible clinical practice guideline generalizable to a myriad of settings.