title: Canadian benchmarks in trauma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Benchmarks are used in trauma care for program evaluation, quality improvement, and research. National outcome benchmarks relevant to the Canadian trauma population need to be defined for evaluation of trauma care in Canada. The purpose of this study was to derive survival probabilities associated with trauma diagnoses using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients admitted to an acute care hospital with nonpenetrating trauma and submitted to the National Trauma Registry of Canada between 1994 through 2000 inclusively were included in analyses. Both inclusive and exclusive survival risk ratios (SRRs) were calculated for groups of ICD-9 injury codes between 800 to 959.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the study period, there were 1,003,905 and 803,776 eligible trauma patients used to calculate inclusive SRRs and exclusive SRRs, respectively. Survival probabilities for injuries are given according to ICD-9 codes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first study to define national survival benchmarks for the Canadian trauma population. These results can be used to assess survival of patients using the ICISS [(ICD-9) based Injury Severity Score (ISS)] methodology. With regular updates, these data can further be developed for continual trauma outcome assessment, quality improvement, and research into trauma care in Canada.
authors.affiliation: Research Committee of the Trauma Association of Canada, Quebec, Canada. eric.bergeron@traumaquebec.org
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bergeron
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Simons
authors.forename: Cassandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Linton
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tallon
authors.forename: Tanya Charyk
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: de Guia
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stephens
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012042:Registries; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014949:Wounds, Nonpenetrating / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology