South African trauma center launches portable electronic trauma health record application

Saturday, January 4, 2014

CHICAGO: Electronic health records (EHRs) have become standard practice throughout hospitals in North America, but in countries with fewer resources many front-line clinicians are still collecting data on paper, if they are collecting it at all. But now, surgeons from Vancouver, British Columbia, have developed a way for their peers at a Level I trauma center in South Africa to accurately collect and analyze trauma care data via an iPad app. The study is published in the January issue of theJournal of the American College of Surgeons.

Traumatic injuries are among the world’s top public health problems. Each minute, at least nine people die from an accidental or violent injury, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,*and 90 percent of trauma deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where injury surveillance is not accurately performed.

Moreover, the global medical community has been more focused on infectious diseases, even though traumatic injuries account for more deaths than HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined, according to Morad Hameed, MD, MPH, FACS, FRCSC, associate professor of surgery and critical care medicine at the University of British Columbia, and a trauma surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital.

Source: Science Codex (link opens in a new window)

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