Inter-hospital transfer: the crux of the trauma system, a curse for trauma registries

Abstract

The inter-hospital transfer of patients is crucial to a well functioning trauma system, and the transfer process may serve as a quality indicator for regional trauma care. However, the assessment of the transfer process requires high-quality data from various sources. Prospective studies and studies based on single-centre trauma registries may fail to capture an appropriate width and depth of data. Thus the creation of inclusive regional and national trauma registries that receive information from all of the services within a trauma system is a prerequisite for high quality inter-hospital transfer studies in the future.