[Injury-related Emergency Department visits in Tuscany (Italy)]

The frequency of injuries underscores the need for planning and implementing efficient injury surveillance systems. Emergency Departments represent the preferred source of data on injuries but information regarding emergency department visits is not always available. We examined the feasibility of utilizing emergency department data to monitor the occurrence of injuries in Tuscany. Each of the 52 public hospital emergency departments operating in the 12 local health units of Tuscany were asked to provide yearly data on the numbers and types of injury-related visits since the year 2003. They were also asked whether attendance records were computerised. This data was used to estimate the number of injury-related visits by cause of injury, at the regional level. The results of this study were combined with those of a previous study to estimate the number of hospital admissions for motor vehicle accidents in Tuscany in 2004. The latter was then compared to corresponding data from the hospital discharge abstract database. In 2002, the number of emergency departments with computerised attendance records was only 27 while in 2005 it was 43 and a greater number of emergency departments were able to codify each type of injury-related visit. A slight decrease was observed in the total number of visits for all causes, between 2002 and 2004 (respectively 1.314.874 and 1.256.509). In 2002, motor vehicle accidents were the most frequent cause of injury-related ED visit (8%), followed by home injuries (7.2%) and workplace accidents (6%). In 2004, home injuries were the most frequent type of injury (7.5%) followed by motor vehicle accidents (6.9%) and workplace injuries (5%). We estimated 6836 hospital admissions for the year 2004, while only 4800 admissions were registered in the discharge abstract database in the same year. Computerisation of attendance records and improvement in codification of data are a good starting point in utilizing emergency department data for epidemiological surveillance of injuries.