• Adam Stannard, Nigel R Tai, Douglas M Bowley, Mark Midwinter, and Tim J Hodgetts.
• Academic Department of Military Surgery and Trauma, Institute of Research and Development, Birmingham Research Park, Vincent Drive, Birmingham B152SQ, UK. adamst@doctors.org.uk
• World J Surg. 2008 Aug 1;32(8):1870-3.

BackgroundKey performance indicators (KPI) are tools for assessing process and outcome in systems of health care provision and are an essential component in performance improvement. Although KPI have been used in British military trauma for 10 years, they remain poorly defined and are derived from civilian metrics that do not adjust for the realities of field trauma care. Our aim was to modify current trauma KPI to ensure they more faithfully reflect both the military setting and contemporary evidence in order to both aid accurate calibration of the performance of the British Defence Medical Services and act as a driver for performance improvement.MethodA workshop was convened that was attended by senior, experienced doctors and nurses from all disciplines of trauma care in the British military. "Speciality-specific" KPI were developed by interest groups using evidence-based data where available and collective experience where this was lacking. In a final discussion these were streamlined into 60 KPI covering each phase of trauma management.ConclusionThe introduction of these KPI sets a number of important benchmarks by which British military trauma can be measured. As part of a performance improvement programme, these will allow closer monitoring of our performance and assist efforts to develop, train, and resource British military trauma providers.

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