Trauma patient reported outcomes

New Zealand has little information on the outcomes for trauma patients once they leave acute care. This is a significant gap in the Network’s understanding of the effectiveness, or otherwise, of the New Zealand trauma system. The patient-reported outcomes project will further understanding of the factors that influence patient outcomes, enable quantification of variation in outcomes across regions and patient sub-groups, and provide critical data for informing improvements in trauma care and delivery.

The aim of this work is to interview all willing adult (16 years and over) patients who have been entered into the New Zealand Trauma Registry (NZTR) at six, 12 and 24 months post-injury by telephone.

They will cover topics such as:

• the participant’s current health
• difficulties the participant may be having with activities such as walking or participating in their community
• the participant’s recovery.

The Commission has contracted the University of Otago to deliver this project. The Otago team will be led by Professor Sarah Derrett and Associate Professor Emma Wyeth, who both have over 10 years’ experience working on injury-related projects, including with Māori.

The intention is that the Network and the Commission will analyse the data after each tranche of interviews is complete (the complete data set will only be available once the project is complete in late 2023) in order to inform our quality improvement work.