The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care · 1990 · 36 citations · 0 references
Public HealthInjury PreventionPreventive MedicineInjury SurveillanceMedical CodingPublic Health SurveillanceElectronic Health Record CodingHealth SurveillanceInjury CodingInjury EpidemiologyPopulation-based Injury SurveillanceSurveillance MethodsEpidemiologic Data AnalysisExternal Cause MortalityHospital Discharge Injury SurveillanceHospitalization-based Injury SurveillanceInjury Coding ClassificationInjury Surveillance NetworksInjury Surveillance SystemsNonfatal Injury Surveillance
Current knowledge of the patterns of injury in the United States derive principally from mortality statistics that constitute less than 0.1% of all injuries reaching medical attention. There presently exists no national system for the surveillance of nonfatal injuries. To illustrate the usefulness and feasibility of conducting injury surveillance using E-coded hospital discharge data, we examined the surveillance data from the Massachusetts Statewide Childhood Injury Prevention Program. By using E-coded hospital discharge data, we increased the number of cases available for analysis by 40-fold over deaths, and we were able to describe the epidemiologic characteristics of the important causes of nonfatal childhood injuries. We therefore propose the development of a national injury surveillance system based on the Uniform Hospital Discharge Data Set coded by both the nature of the injury (N Code) and external cause (E Code).