Major Trauma Audit (MTA)

Data Collection Type
National data collections of health and social care in Ireland
Organisation

National Office of Clinical Audit

Year established

2013

Statement of purpose

MTA will provide a framework for hospitals to collect standardised data on patient injury, care processes and patient outcomes.

Coverage

All trauma receiving public hospitals participate in this audit.

Description

The Major Trauma Audit (MTA) will provide a framework for hospitals to collect standardised data on patient injury, care processes and patient outcomes. NOCA will provide the frameworks and operational support for the introduction of MTA in Ireland, through participation in the UK Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN). TARN is based on web-enabled collection of a standardised dataset for patients who are admitted to hospital or die in the Emergency Department (ED) with centralised analysis and benchmarking of data undertaken at TARN based in the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre University of Manchester.
Objectives of MTA: 

  • to provide a national baseline of current patient demands in trauma care, clinical practice and performance 
  • to identify current practice in the process of care of trauma patients, to map trends in this process of care and to develop improved care pathways for the seriously injured population 
  • to identify variance in patient process and the impact of such variance on patient care 
  • to promote reflective clinical practice and to encourage peer performance review at local and national level 
  • to provide high-quality data to enable peer reviewed research and to drive clinical change.
Data content

This data includes: patient demographics, type and cause of injury, injury severity, pre-hospital data, and patient’s hospital journey e.g. time to treatment, length of stay, and outcomes based on mortality.

Data providers

Trauma receiving hospitals (26 hospitals).

Data collection methodology

Hospital-level MTA coordinators submit data on a web-based data collection and reporting system.

Data dictionary

Yes, available via TARN: www.tarn.ac.uk

Clinical coding scheme

International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision (ICD–10) injury codes (S and T) are used to identify reports for inclusion in MTA.

Size of national collection

Approximately between 5,000 and 6,000 records created on average annually. 

Publication frequency

NOCA annual report.

Accessing data

NOCA annual reports.
Data requests to NOCA in line with information governance procedures.

Open data portal access

No

Email contact
Telephone contact