Background

            Trauma is a major health concern, leading to significant morbidity and mortality globally. It is associated with high economic burden on society related to high cost of care. Traumatic injuries also have significant impact on victims affecting mainly young patients. Standardized data collection in trauma registries allows for improved surveillance, detection of high impact areas and locally tailored injury prevention strategies and measures.

Overall goals: 

1.            Establish a Lebanese Trauma registry at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

2.            Identify the major types of injuries in the Lebanese population, their nature, location and causes.

3.             Identify injury patterns and subsequently develop preventive measures in order to decrease the burden of injuries.   

Aims:  

1.            Establish a local trauma registry with standardized data collection to allow for more structured trauma research

2.            Establish a collaboration with other hospitals to assess trauma impact at a national level

3.            Develop and maintain a real-time data system for Trauma, including quality assurance mechanisms for data collection and management

4.            Provide a relevant and realistic plan to use trauma registry data to improve the delivery of care to patients with traumatic injuries.

5.            Collaborate with other Asian countries in PATOS on trauma research 

Data Collection

            Data will be collected through access of Electronic Health Records. The specific information to be collected is divided into patient demographics, injury epidemiology (intent, mechanism, location, nature, place and activity), alcohol or substance use, pre-hospital care and arrival mode to the Emergency Department. ED and hospital care, cause of death (if applicable), injury severity and disability, ED and hospital charges will also be integrated. The collection process will be monitored in order to ensure that the data obtained is of high quality and all hard copies will be kept with the PI. No patient identifiers (Name, Medical Record Number, etc.) will be included in the registry.

Impact on Human Health   

            Analysis of collected data will lead to better understanding of causes and extent of injury from trauma. This will allow for the implementation of prevention programs tailored to local need. Eventual expansion to include other hospitals in Lebanon through collaboration with the Ministry of Health will be of great value to obtain more representative results. The registry will also be used afterwards to monitor in real-time the effect of injury prevention programs. 

All patients who will present to the Emergency Department at the American University of Beirut as a result of trauma will be included in the study. This will also include children and pregnant women.