Adequacy of Hospital Discharge Status as a Measure of Outcome Among Injured Patients

Abstract

DEATH DURING hospitalization is used as a principal indicator of outcome in injury research examining the effectiveness of trauma systems. Deaths among injured patients have been classified as preventable, possibly preventable, or nonpreventable for the purpose of quality assurance review.¹ Logistic regression models developed from normative data have been used to predict the risk-adjusted odds of hospital death for injured patients to determine if trauma centers fail, meet, or exceed standards of care.² Inherent in these analyses is the assumption that injured patients discharged alive following trauma demonstrate a risk of death similar to that of the general population. That is, these methods fail to account for deaths related to the injury that may occur after hospital discharge.