Trauma Services BC has operational oversight of the BC Trauma Registry.
The BC Trauma Registry is designed to capture data on patients who require complex trauma care and are treated at all facilities in the province. There are two BC Trauma Registry datasets.
The minimum dataset contains information on all trauma patients in BC who have been sent by ambulance or have been in an emergency department, or who have been admitted to hospital. The minimum dataset is originally compiled from data available from other datasets in BC and then is enhanced by adding several additional trauma specific data elements.
The comprehensive dataset is not captured in other provincial or regional datasets. Information is collected under the authority of sections 26c and 26e of FIPPA. It contains a large number of clinical and administrative data specific to trauma on patients who meet any of the following criteria:
- Are treated for moderate to severe injuries (injury severity score greater than or equal to 9)
- Meet site trauma team activation criteria or have a trauma team response
- Require coordinated care across facilities
- Are included in specialized populations (pediatrics)
- Expire in hospital following a traumatic incident
The registry’s primary purpose is to support improvement in the quality of care for BC trauma patients, and to reflect and facilitate system-level performance improvement. Many traumatic injuries are preventable, such as falls and motor vehicle accidents, so it is important to look at the data to determine how trauma-related injuries can be prevented.
BC Trauma Registry analysts are present in each of BC’s 11 trauma-designated facilities to collect data for the comprehensive dataset. Each participating hospital has one (or more) health information registrars who code and abstract trauma information as per provincial standards. Data from the sites is transferred to a central registry, which contains all registry records from participating facilities. As of August 2016, the provincial trauma comprehensive data set contains over 190,000 patient records.
Rigorous data quality checks and business rules are applied to the data received by the registry to ensure a high level of data integrity and consistency. The BC Trauma Registry provides data access for public-interest research purposes, surveillance, program delivery and evaluation.
BC’s Provincial Burn Registry also operates under the BC Trauma Registry with two participating sites: Vancouver General Hospital and BC Children’s Hospital.
Contact the Registry
