The journal of trauma and acute care surgery
-
J Trauma Acute Care Surg · May 2013
ReviewTrauma center performance indicators for nonfatal outcomes: a scoping review of the literature.
According to Donabedian's framework, outcomes covering the following six domains should be used to evaluate health care quality: death, adverse events, readmissions to hospital, resource use, quality of life, and ability to function in daily activities. The objective of this study was to identify the nonfatal outcomes that have been used to evaluate the performance of trauma hospitals. Secondary objectives were to describe definitions and methodological quality. ⋯ Among recommended domains of nonfatal outcomes, adverse events and resource use were frequently used to evaluate trauma care, readmissions and function in daily activities were rarely used, and quality of life was never used. In addition, definitions of nonfatal outcomes were variable, and methodological quality was low. There is a need to develop valid and reliable performance indicators based on each domain of Donabedian's framework to evaluate trauma care.