The 2015 Pediatric Report of the National Trauma Data Bank® (NTDB®) is an updated analysis of the largest aggregation of U.S./Canadian trauma registry data ever assembled. In total, the NTDB now contains more than 6 million records. The 2015 Pediatric Report is based on 143,996 records submitted by 745 facilities from admission year 2014. The NTDB classifies pediatric patients in this report as patients who are younger than 20 years of age.
The mission of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma (COT) is to develop and implement meaningful programs for trauma care. In keeping with this mission, the NTDB is committed to being the principal national repository for trauma center registry data. The purpose of this report is to inform the medical community, the public, and decision makers about a variety of issues that characterize the current state of care for injured pediatric patients in the U.S. It has implications for epidemiology, injury control, research, education, acute care, resource allocation, and other areas.
Four regions
The U.S. Census Bureau divides the U.S. into four regions. The Northeast comprises nine states, the Midwest 12 states, the West 13 states, and the South the remaining 16 states and the District of Columbia. Each region has its own population statistics, and the pediatric component (patients younger than 18 years old) is fairly well divided among the four regions—22.3 percent of pediatric trauma patients were in the Northeast, 24.1 percent were in the Midwest, 24.3 percent were in the South, and 24.9 percent were in the West. Figure 36 of the 2015 Pediatric Report indicates that the South accounts for more than 40 percent of the trauma incidents. (See Figure 1).
Figure 1. Incidents by region
Many dedicated individuals on the ACS COT, including the Pediatric Surgery Subspecialty group, along with those individuals caring for pediatric patients at trauma centers throughout the country, have contributed to the early development of the NTDB and its growth in recent years. Building on these achievements, the goals in the coming years include improving data quality, updating analytic methods, and developing data that enable more useful inter-hospital comparisons. These efforts will be reflected in future NTDB reports to participating hospitals as well as in annual pediatric reports.
Throughout the year, we will be highlighting these data through brief monthly reports published in the Bulletin. The NTDB 2015 Pediatric Report is available on the ACS website as a PDF file. In addition, information is available on the website about how to obtain NTDB data for more detailed study. To submit your trauma center’s data, contact Melanie L. Neal, Manager, NTDB, at mneal@facs.org.
