Developing countries are faced with the challenges and pressures of health care inequities and scarcity of resources. There is an urgent need to provide both essential and cost effective trauma care. However, a major impediment to system development and provision of essential trauma care in these regions is inadequate or nonexistent data. The under-registration of mortality and morbidity impedes accurate assessment of true burden of injury, and the resultant decrease of allocation of resources for essential trauma care.

Injury surveillance system based on a piloted regional trauma registry is the most important initial step for the development of trauma system.

The International Trauma System Development Program in conjunction with the Panamerican Trauma Society has created an accessible, web based trauma registry in order to improve data collection and data management, for the generation of statistics that will identify the quantity, type and mechanisms of trauma injuries, as well as evaluation of internal and external resources needed for proper management of patients trauma.

Goals

The objective is the provision of an integral injury surveillance system for specific evaluation and the follow up of the impact of current projects for the development of a regional trauma system, specifically:

a) Injury Prevention Programs
b) Emergency Pre-hospital Medical Services
c) Trauma and Critical Care Training
d) Inter-facility transfer system
e) Local and Provincial Trauma Statistics
f) Quality /Performance Improvement

This process consists of the following;

1. Granting an emergency trauma form
2. Creation of a corresponding electronic trauma registry
3. Training of health care workers and data entry staff
4. Periodic auditing of the data collected and entered

Trauma Registry Characteristics

The Trauma Registry has the ability to function as:

• Hospital Trauma Registry
• Regional Trauma Registry
• National Trauma data bank
• International Trauma data bank

Ability to:

• Contain up to 20 languages
• Simultaneously translate from English to Spanish
• Import/Export to all types of statistical software (Example; Excel, SAS, SPSS).
• Integrate to a network system with/without an Internet connection
• Administrative function for access and roles
• Integrated data quality and error review system
• Integrated Help Module

Integration of:

• International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10)
• Trauma Scores
  1. Physiological: Vital Signs, level of consciousness , Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Revised Trauma Score (RTS)
  2. Anatomical:  Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS),   Injury Severity Score (ISS), Organ Injury Scale (OIS)
• Reports Module with advanced graphics system
  1. Thirteen fixed reports systems
  2. Modifiable Report Generator

BE PART OF THE “TRAUMA REGISTRY PILOT PHASE”

Ten Hospitals of Latin America will be selected to participate in the Trauma Registry pilot phase during the 2011-2013 periods. The pilot phase provides a special discount for:

• Free Software
• Free training

TRAUMA REGISTRIES

Cali, Colombia

ITSDP and the PTS with the initiative to establish the use of a trauma registry in Latin America initiated the pilot phase of the electronic trauma registry in the "Hospital Universitario del Valle" and the "Fundación Vallle de Lili" in Cali, Colombia , during October 2011. The "Hospital Universitario del Valle" is one of the main trauma centers in Cali, with an estimated number of 43,652 emergency patients in the 2010, of which 20% were admitted with trauma injuries.  The "Valle de Lili" foundation had a total of 10,000 trauma consults in 2010 with a total of 1200 patients that were admitted.

Training was conducted in a two day period, to a group of 14 people including paramedics, statisticians, epidemiologist, trauma and critical care fellows and medical students. During the first day a presentation on trauma systems and trauma registry was given. After which access to the registry was granted to participants and training on how to use the registry initiated. Participants were trained on how to enter patient data in the "Trauma Registry" module and entered patient data as an interactive practice. During the second day training on how to generate reports with patient’sdata was conducted. They learned how to generate fixed reports and filter specific reports.

TRAUMA REGISTRIES

Panama City, Panama

During February 2012, the " Santo Tomas" hospital, the main trauma center in Panama city was trained during a two day period on the use of the registry. During 2010 a total of 15,576 patients were admitted to the ED due to trauma, representing 26% of all ED patients, of these 3% died.*

TRAUMA REGISTRIES

Medillin, Colombia

During November 2012, the “Foundation San Vicente de Paul”, the main trauma center in Medellin joined part of the ITSDP trauma registry pilot phase. A team of hospital administrators, statisticians and physicians were trained on its importance, utility and management.