Budget impact analysis of implementing trauma registries in Argentina

In high-income countries, quality improvement interventions and research are usually guided by trauma registries. In low- and middle-income countries, the implementation of trauma registries has been limited mainly for cost reasons.

To analyze the budgetary impact of the implementation of trauma registries in Argentina.

We estimated direct costs of implementing trauma registries in public hospitals located in cities with a population over 50,000 inhabitants. In large urban areas, we selected hospitals by estimating a minimum volume of 240 severe trauma admissions/year and using the NBATS-2 instrument with geolocation techniques. We estimated costs based on a micro-costing approach of a trauma registry developed by Fundación Trauma. Scenario analysis was carried out restricting the population to hospitals from bigger cities and/or with higher concentration of trauma patients' care. For the high budget impact threshold, we used the total health spending estimation, and alternatively the health spending of the public sector.

For the base case, 139 hospitals from 104 cities were included, comprising 175,605 injury-related discharges and 13,707 severely injured patients/year. The average cost for the initial three years was USD 3,753,085 (21.4 USD/per patient), falling below the high budget impact thresholds. The scenarios analysis showed a significantly costs reduction.

The implementation of trauma registries in Argentina would be affordable, and in consequence, it would improve the coordination, management and quality of care for this great public health issue.