Injury Severity Scoring System for Trauma Patients and Trauma Outcomes Research in Korea

To improve trauma outcomes, a solid logistic support system is obviously crucial. An important national trauma outcome indicator is preventable trauma death rate, 35% in Korea. The Korean government is aware of this figure and is making efforts to reduce the preventable trauma death rate by 20%. One of the main components was establishing regional trauma centers covering the Korean peninsula, and a trauma care system. Seventeen regional trauma centers will be verified by the year of 2020. To achieve this goal, trauma specialist medical staff’s role is essential. A trauma system is very complicated. It involves a broad range of health care fields from the prehospital setting to rehabilitation. In addition, a number of professionals, institutions and authorities are involved. Thus, very sophisticated systemic approaches are needed. An essential initial component is surveillance, which can start with collecting data and analyzing them thoroughly with a suitable trauma scoring system to describe the characteristics of injured patients in Korea. Several trauma scoring systems are available in Korea. However, these systems need validation to decide which is pertinent for a records- based Korean trauma system. Although the Korean Trauma Data Bank (KTDB) is recently established, it can be used for a predictive model in Korea.