Citation

Mullins RJ, Veum-Stone J, Hedges JR, Zimmer-Gembeck MJ, Mann C, Helfand M. J. Trauma 1995; 39(5): 941-948.

Affiliation

Department of Surgery, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7474012

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To document the validity of a Hospital Discharge Index (HDI) as a data base on injured patients. DESIGN: Patient information in trauma registries was compared with information in HDI. POPULATION: Injured patients admitted to trauma centers. METHODS: Patients in HDI were crossmatched with individuals in one or two trauma registries using deterministic matching techniques. Agreement regarding the presence and severity of injury was assessed. RESULTS: A comprehensive trauma registry from a level I trauma center and HDI agreed on the presence of an injury in each of 6 body regions over a range of kappa values from 0.17 to 0.71. The severity of injury score assigned by the two data bases demonstrated agreement over a range of intraclass correlation values from 0.12 to 0.82. CONCLUSION: HDI provides adequate information concerning injury for the majority of hospitalized patients, but was primarily limited by incomplete information. Efforts to improve HDI should focus on guidelines for data abstraction.