BALTIMORE - A national panel will review the protocols Maryland uses to determine which patients are taken from accident scenes to trauma centers, state officials said Monday.

Also, starting as soon as the state can get the process in place, paramedics must begin consulting a trauma center physician before sending a patient to a trauma center.

The new requirements apply in cases where patients don't show signs of serious injury, officials said.

"Let's be clear, ladies and gentlemen, emergency triage is not a precise science," Dr. Thomas M. Scalea, physician-in-chief at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, said at...