Trauma systems should consistently monitor a given trauma population over a period of time. The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and derived scores such as the Injury Severity Score (ISS) are commonly used to quantify injury severities in trauma registries. To reflect contemporary trauma management and treatment, the most recent version of the AIS (AIS08) contains many codes which differ in severity from their equivalents in the earlier 1998 version (AIS98). Consequently, the adoption of AIS08 may impede comparisons between data coded using different AIS versions. It may also affect the number of patients classified as major trauma.

Introduction: No worldwide, standardised definitions exist for documenting, reporting and comparing data from severely injured trauma patients. This study evaluated the feasibility of collecting the data variables of the international consensus-derived Utstein Trauma Template. Methods: Trauma centres from three different continents were invited to submit Utstein Trauma Template core data during a defined period, for up to 50 consecutive trauma patients. Directly admitted patients with a New Injury Severity Score (NISS) equal to or above 16 were included. Main outcome variables were data completeness, data differences and data collection difficulty. Results: Centres from Europe (n = 20), North America (n = 3) and Australia (n = 1) submitted data on 965 patients, of whom 783 were included. Median age was 41 years (interquartile range (IQR) 24 to 60), and 73.1% were male. Median NISS was 27 (IQR 20 to 38), and blunt trauma predominated (91.1%). Of the 36 Utstein variables, 13 (36%) were collected by all participating centres. Eleven (46%) centres applied definitions of the survival outcome variable that were different from those of the template. Seventeen (71%) centres used the recommended version of the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). Three variables (age, gender and AIS) were documented in all patients. Completeness > 80% was achieved for 28 variables, and 20 variables were > 90% complete. Conclusions: The Utstein Template was feasible across international trauma centres for the majority of its data variables, with the exception of certain physiological and time variables. Major differences were found in the definition of survival and in AIS coding. The current results give a clear indication of the attainability of information and may serve as a stepping-stone towards creation of a European trauma registry.

Many trauma registries have used the Abbreviated Injury Scale 1990 Revision Update 98 (AIS98) to classify injuries. In the current AIS version (Abbreviated Injury Scale 2005 Update 2008 - AIS08), injury classification and specificity differ substantially from AIS98, and the mapping tools provided in the AIS08 dictionary are incomplete. As a result, data from different AIS versions cannot currently be compared. The aim of this study was to develop an additional AIS98 to AIS08 mapping tool to complement the current AIS dictionary map, and then to evaluate the completed map (produced by combining these two maps) using double-coded data. The value of additional information provided by free text descriptions accompanying assigned codes was also assessed.