Fracture Database of the University Hospital Basel: A REDCap Assisted Reliability and Validity Study of Fracture Classifications of the Distal Radius

Since 2017, a fracture database has been developed in the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology at the University Hospital in Basel. Since November 2018, all patients who are treated surgically in the Clinic for Traumatology & Orthopedics due to fractures of the extremities or the pelvis have been included in the fracture database of the University Hospital Basel for quality assurance purposes.

This database was created with the research software REDCap and is used for internal quality measurement. It essentially consists of three instruments: the encoded patient data, the diagnosis and the therapy. In order to promote rapid digitized progress in the health care system, the quality of the recorded data must be checked regularly through suitable studies. This type of quality management is of essential scientific relevance for the fracture database of the University Hospital Basel. For this reason, the classifications of the recorded fractures in the database are to be examined on a random basis so that weak points in the system can be addressed and staff can be better trained. The primary goal of the project is to measure the accuracy of the classifications of the distal radius fracture in the fracture database. The evaluation of the extracted data analyzes the validity of the fracture classifications that the medical staff carry out in everyday clinical practice.

Endpoint of this project is the reclassification of the selected fractures by an in-house group of experts in order to be able to carry out a subsequent statistical evaluation. It is analyzed whether there are significant deviations between the classifications of the expert group and the fracture database.