THE ROLE OF SCORING SYSTEMS IN THE ASSESS MENT OF INJURY SEVERITY ANDAS INSTRUMENTS FOR A QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN MAJOR TRAUMA PATIENTS

Trauma Score Systems attempt to summarize the severity of injury in a single value. They provide a better classification of trauma patients and translate different severities of injury in a common language. The y enable thereby comparisons between hospitals or trauma systems. Youn g doctors can control their clinical judgement with scoring systems an d will gain experience. Scoring systems therefore increase safety and can help in decision making. As accuracy of scoring systems is never 1 00 % individual decisions can never rely on scores only. Glasgow Coma Scale, Revised Trauma Score, Injury Severity Score and TRISS are the m ost often used international scores for severely injured patients. The ir sensitivity and specificity, validity, reliability and practicabili ty have been studied and proved in many trials. The role of these scor ing systems for quality management purposes in the treatment of severe trauma is actually studied with the Trauma Registry of the German Soc iety for Trauma Surgery.