The establishment of injury surveillance in Thailand

The Provincial Injury Surveillance System was initiated in Thailand in 1993 to establish a database for assessment of the quality of acute care and referral services provided to the injured at the provincial level, and to facilitate injury prevention and control at both local and national levels. An injury surveillance system model that adopted a trauma registry as the record form, was established in five selected large hospitals, one from Bangkok and four from major regions of Thailand. Data analysis was undertaken and utilized at both local and national levels. The Epidemiology Division of the Ministry of Public Health supervised and assessed the data quality. Evaluators from the School of Public Health identified problems in operating the system at the provincial level and assessed the feasibility of expanding the project. The data of 66,895 injuries including 1,755 deaths reported in 1995; revealed fundamental problems in the emergency medical services. Causes of major injuries were identified and their epidemiology described. The coverage of reporting was over 90%. The completeness and reliability of recording ranged from 80.6–100%. This model of sentinel surveillance is appropriate for injury problems, which are of large magnitude and are at the early phase of problem solving. Development of the information systems administration and human resource in computer technology are necessary to cope with the problems of increased workload in data collecting and processing. This model of surveillance is feasible for expansion but its data system has to be appropriately integrated into the existing systems of the hospitals.