Der Unfallchirurg
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Registries are becoming increasingly more important in clinical research. The TraumaRegister DGU® of the German Society for Trauma Surgery plays an excellent role with respect to the care of severely injured patients. ⋯ The present investigation underlines the importance of standardized checks concerning data provided for registries in order to be able to guarantee an improvement in entering data.
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Since its founding in 1993 the TraumaRegister DGU® has become one of the largest registries especially in terms of data diversity. Since the introduction of the TraumaNetzwerk DGU®, the TraumaRegister DGU® has enabled a quasi-nationwide picture of the quality of care of severely injured patients in Germany. The register is subject to constant development, under the guidance of the working groups of the German Society for Trauma Surgery (DGU). ⋯ The future developments will involve the extension of the register to certain injury patterns. The existing registry will also be supplemented with other recorded qualities (from the supplementary serum database up to the quality of life). This makes the TraumaRegister DGU® a tool for quality assurance and science which is well prepared for the future.
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Review Multicenter Study
[Optimization of criteria for activation of trauma teams : Avoidance of overtriage and undertriage].
Severely injured patients are supposed to be admitted to hospital via the trauma room. Appropriate criteria are contained in the S3 guidelines on the treatment of patients with severe/multiple injuries (S3-GL); however, some of these criteria require scarce hospital resources while the patients then often clinically present as uninjured. There are tendencies to streamline the trauma team activation criteria (TTAC); however, additional undertriage must be avoided. A study group of the emergency, intensive care medicine and treatment of the severely injured section (NIS) is in the process of optimizing the TTAC for the German trauma system. ⋯ Currently, the TR-DGU can only provide limited evidence on the quality of the TTAC recommended in Germany. This problem has been recognized and will be solved by conducting a prospective DGU-supported study, the results of which can be used to improve the TR-DGU dataset in order to enable further considerations on the quality of care (e. g. composition and size of the trauma team).
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Since the publication in 1993, the dataset and documentation form of the TraumaRegister DGU® (TR-DGU) have continuously evolved. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary the authors have analyzed this evolution in order to reflect it in the light of medical progress in the treatment of the severely injured. ⋯ The members of the working group TraumaRegister all actively participate in the treatment of severely injured patients. For 25 years this group has managed to unify the latest medical developments and well-established parameters within the TR-DGU dataset at a relatively constant degree of effort for documentation. Practice in place of theory is the driving force behind this development that serves quality assurance and research in the treatment of severely injured patients.
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The trauma registry of the German Trauma Society (TraumaRegister DGU®) is not only a tool for quality management but also for research purposes. ⋯ The number and impact factors of publications from the TraumaRegister DGU® rose steeply during the last 10 years and in the last 3 years consisted of 25 publications per year. More than two thirds of them were published in high quality international journals and reflect the great scientific importance. For the German speaking readership and the specific aspects of treatment of the severely injured relevant to Germany, the large number of German language articles are just as important. Independent of the impact factor publications in Deutsches Ärzteblatt, the journal with the highest circulation and Der Unfallchirurg play the most important role. A large amount of scientific information gained from the TraumaRegister DGU® has been included in treatment guidelines and structures. The register is a basic prerequisite for the TraumaNetzwerk DGU®. Since almost all severely injured patients in Germany are now included in the registry, it is possible to obtain epidemiologically reliable data of treatment and outcomes for these patient groups.