Improvement of Trauma Care Quality by Implement Trauma Register in a Middle Income Country

The mortality caused by traumatic injuries in Africa is 116 per 100,000 population, compared to Europe with 49/100,000 population . In Kenya, which is a middle-income country in East Africa, the mortality caused by injuries is 101/100,000 population . Injuries, particularly those sustained through road traffic accidents, are a major cause of death in the African region. Statistics from the WHO reveal that, in 2015, 26.6/100,000 died in road traffic accidents in Africa. The corresponding numbers for Europe were 9.3/100,000 population . About 3000 people are killed annually on Kenyan roads, with an estimated road fatality rate of 29.1/100,000 population the affected predominantly from a productive young adult population.

MOI University/Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) Eldoret, Kenya, is the second national referral hospital in Kenya with a catchment of over 22 million people. A previous study, focuses on evaluating the possible benefit of in-hospital triage for trauma patients admitted to the ED at the MTRH. The study illustrated a significant need for improvement in trauma care management and also resulted in the creation of a trauma database containing ICD codes and specific patient parameters.

Although receiving increased attention, implementing strategies to improve trauma care in developing countries to address the health burden on the emergency care service is still warranted. Improved road safety legislation, reducing drunk driving, development of pre-hospital care systems , and strengthened hospital trauma care have been suggested as interventions to mitigate this problem in the health care system .

Hospital trauma registers have played a key role in the advancement of patient-based research and trauma care. Trauma registers offer a unique opportunity to document patient characteristics and audit outcomes, thereby creating a platform for clinical research. Several scoring systems to assess injury severity with the aim of improving trauma care quality have been developed. One of these systems is the ICD-based Injury Severity Score (ICISS) derived from and validated on hospital data to predict hospital death. This powerful tool uses survival risk ratios (SRRs) to calculate the probability of survival for patients and allows accurate estimates of injury severity. To calculate ICISS, each ICD-code is assigned a SRR. Each SRR is equal to the proportion of patients who survived with a specific ICD-code in a reference population. In literature searches, there is lack of published SRRs from low income countries' trauma population.

The Institutional Research and Ethics Committee (IREC) at MOI University and MOI Teaching and Referral Hospital reviewed and approved the research proposal and has been granted a Formal Approval Number (FAN: IREC 3008).