title: The implementation of a pilot femur fracture registry at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital: an analysis of data quality and barriers to collaborative capacity-building.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Trauma registries are essential for injury surveillance and recognition of the burden of musculoskeletal injury in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The purpose of this study was to pilot a femur fracture registry at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) to assess data quality and determine the barriers to research partnering in LMICs.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients admitted to KATH with a fracture of the femur, or Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Osteosynthesefragen (AO) class 31, 32, 33, were entered into a locally designed, electronic femur fracture database. Patients' characteristics and data quality were assessed by using descriptive statistics. Orthopedic trauma research barriers and opportunities were identified from key informants at the research site and supporting site.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Ninety-six femur fracture patients were enrolled into the registry over a 5-week period. The majority of patients resided in the Ashanti region surrounding the hospital (78 %). Most participants were involved in a road traffic crash (58 %) and physiologically stable with a Cape Triage Score of yellow upon admission (84 %). AO class 32 femur fractures represented the majority of femur fractures (78 %). Median times from injury to admission, admission to surgery, and surgery to discharge were 0, 5, and 10 days, respectively. Data quality analysis showed that data collected at admission had higher rates of completion in the database relative to data collected at various follow-up time points.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Data and data quality analyses highlighted characteristics of femur fracture patients presenting to KATH as well as the technological, administrative support, and hospital systems-based challenges of longitudinal data collection in LMICs.
authors.affiliation: Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. sonshined@orthosurg.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Daniel B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Sonshine
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shantz
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kumah-Ametepey
authors.forename: R Richard
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Coughlin
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Gosselin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D057191:Capacity Building / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000592:standards*; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D005264:Femoral Fractures / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005869:Ghana / Q000453:epidemiology; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010343:Patient Admission; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult