MTA Methodology

The MTA collects data on all major trauma patients who meet the inclusion criteria.

The data are collected in the local hospitals by audit coordinators who enter the data retrospectively from patient medical records or information technology systems. Each hospital has an audit coordinator and a clinical lead, and should have an MTA governance committee. A list of cases eligible for inclusion is identified by creating an MTA report through the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) system. Each audit coordinator has access to the HIPE portal to create these reports. The cases identified in these reports are reviewed and, where eligible, are entered into TARN. Where deemed ineligible, they are recorded as such within the HIPE system, along with a reason for not being included. The ineligible cases are removed from each hospital’s denominator at the end of each reporting year, so as to ensure that the data coverage is accurate.

The audit coordinator and clinical lead can generate local reports. TARN issues clinical reports three times a year and dashboard reports twice a year. In addition, NOCA sends quarterly reports to the Hospital Groups. Most data are entered retrospectively and in accordance with the data collection targets set out in the data collection calendar. The TARN coders and analytical team provide analysis of the data in order to create key variables in advance of sharing the data with NOCA. Examples of these key measures are the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS).

TARN has also recently developed a TARN analytics dashboard which allows hospitals to look at their data more prospectively using Microsoft Power BI (a data visualisation tool). Microsoft Power BI contains a number of report templates (for example TARN have created reports for data quality, body regions injured, case mix, and pathways and outcomes), and the data can be further analysed by selecting options on the screen. The reports can be exported into Portable Document Format (PDF) or PowerPoint to make them easy to share with relevant stakeholders, or to use them for service development and quality improvement.