Emergency department record keeping and the potential for injury surveillance

Successful design of injury prevention measures relies on understanding the occurrence and circumstances of injuries, which, in turn, necessitates that good quality data be collected about injured persons. The emergency department (ED) is an important source of injury information. This paper reports...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe journal of trauma Vol. 32; no. 2; p. 187
Main Authors Runyan, C W, Bowling, J M, Bangdiwala, S I
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.02.1992
Subjects
Data Collection - standards
Documentation - standards
Emergency Service, Hospital - organization & administration
Forms and Records Control - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Medical Records - standards
North Carolina - epidemiology
Population Surveillance
Surveys and Questionnaires
Wounds and Injuries - epidemiology
Wounds and Injuries - prevention & control
North Carolina
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:Successful design of injury prevention measures relies on understanding the occurrence and circumstances of injuries, which, in turn, necessitates that good quality data be collected about injured persons. The emergency department (ED) is an important source of injury information. This paper reports the results of a survey of all 129 hospital emergency departments in North Carolina to examine record-keeping practices and determine what information is collected and stored in the EDs. The findings demonstrate that there is considerable variability in the types of data that would be available to a researcher attempting to use ED records. Of special note is the absence of information about the external cause of injury.
ISSN:0022-5282
DOI:10.1097/00005373-199202000-00013