National estimates of injury incidence for patients treated in U.S. trauma centers compared to U.S. hospital emergency departments

Purpose: To characterize national estimates of injuries treated in level I and level II trauma center hospitals compared to those treated in US hospital emergency departments (EDs) using data from the National Trauma Data Bank-National Sample Project (NTDB-NSP) and the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP).

Methods: National estimates from the NTDB-NSP and from the NEISS-AIP were analyzed by age and sex of the patient and for intent and unintentional causes of injury for 2006. For the NTDB-NSP, an injury case was defined as those in the trauma registry of sample hospitals with at least one valid ICD-9-CM injury diagnosis code and one external cause-of-injury code. For NEISS-AIP, injury cases were those treated in a NEISS sample hospital ED and then hospitalized or transferred for specialized care. Cases dead on arrival or who died in ED were excluded.

Results: Injured patients in the NTDB-NSP were more likely to be younger adults (15–34 years of age) (34.6% vs. 26.2%, respectively), male (64.0% vs. 53.5%), injured motor vehicle traffic-occupant (31.9% vs. 11.9%), and assaults (11.3% vs. 6.3%), than those for the NEISS-AIP.

Conclusion: The study findings are consistent with expectations based on the patient population represented by these two national samples. NEISS-AIP is currently being used to track injuries by external causes of injury among all patients treated in US hospital EDs. When fully implemented, NTDB-NSP should be useful in tracking injury incidence by external cause of injury among severe trauma patients and for trauma care assessment.