PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Leah Rosenkrantz
AU  - Nadine Schuurman
AU  - Claudia Arenas
AU  - Andrew Nicol
AU  - Morad S. Hameed
TI  - Maximizing the potential of trauma registries in low-income and middle-income countries
AID  - 10.1136/tsaco-2020-000469
DP  - 2020 May 01
TA  - Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open
PG  - e000469
VI  - 5
IP  - 1
4099  - http://tsaco.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000469.short
4100  - http://tsaco.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000469.full
SO  - Trauma Surg Acute Care Open2020 May 01; 5
AB  - Injury is a major global health issue, resulting in millions of deaths every year. For decades, trauma registries have been used in wealthier countries for injury surveillance and clinical governance, but their adoption has lagged in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Paradoxically, LMICs face a disproportionately high burden of injury with few resources available to address this pandemic. Despite these resource constraints, several hospitals and regions in LMICs have managed to develop trauma registries to collect information related to the injury event, process of care, and outcome of the injured patient. While the implementation of these trauma registries is a positive step forward in addressing the injury burden in LMICs, numerous challenges still stand in the way of maximizing the potential of trauma registries to inform injury prevention, mitigation, and improve quality of trauma care. This paper outlines several of these challenges and identifies potential solutions that can be adopted to improve the functionality of trauma registries in resource-poor contexts. Increased recognition and support for trauma registry development and improvement in LMICs is critical to reducing the burden of injury in these settings.