Pediatric Injury Scoring and Trauma Registry

Pediatric injury severity scoring systems are tools used to categorise traumatic injuries. These scoring systems are based on anatomic injury scoring, physiologic injury scoring or a combination of the two. These systems allow for quantification of the severity of injuries to various parts of the body in order to standardise the process of triage and communication about the injured child. However, each of these systems has varying levels of complexity of calculation, which results in some systems being more useful in different locales (e.g. prehospital versus after hospital arrival). Some of these systems also carry prognostic information about the patient’s potential outcome. The standardisation of patient injury and reporting has also led to the creation of trauma registries. Trauma registries allow for ongoing quality improvement and quality assurance as well as serving as a source for multicentre quality evaluations. These registries also contain detailed information regarding prehospital care, in-hospital care and outcomes. From this, potential barriers to care can be identified for ongoing improvement in care.