Method to electronically collect emergency department data

Study objective: To describe the development and completeness of an electronic injury-surveillance system, the Rural Injury Surveillance System (RISS). Methods: The emergency departments of nine rural Iowa hospitals submitted information on all patients treated from May 1993 through June 1994. Results: The EDs submitted information on 23,594 patients with 32,445 different injury, disease, or fellow-up visits. On the basis of comparison with the handwritten ED logbook, 90% of visits were also available in the RISS. Of the visits recorded in the RISS, 99% were also recorded in the logbook. The proportion of missing diagnostic codes decreased from a high of 22.6% in May 1993 to 8.1% in June 1994. The proportion of missing external cause codes was about 25% at the end of the study period. The proportion of missing industry and occupational codes was less than 5% at the end of the study period. Conclusion: Our findings show that complete, computerized, ED-based injury surveillance in rural EDs is possible and should be developed further.