WISQARS™ Cost of Injury Reports Help Menu

2.1 Injury Outcome

This section allows you to specify the type of injury outcome for which cost estimates are to be generated. One of the following three injury outcomes must be selected by clicking on the appropriate radio button:

• Death

  This option refers to injury-related deaths for which a death certificate was filed in a state vital statistics office and then submitted to the National Center for Health Statistics for inclusion in the National Vital Statistics System. For further information about the data, see Section 5.

• Hospitalization (Subsequent to Emergency Department Treatment)

  This option refers to patients initially treated for an injury in a United States hospital emergency department and then either hospitalized or transferred for specialized physical or psychological care. Patients directly admitted to a hospital from outpatient clinics or other treatment venues, and patients treated and released from hospital emergency departments are excluded from this category. Secondary hospitalizations related to the same injury incident are also excluded. The source of the data used to estimate the number of injury-related hospitalizations is the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System – All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP). For further information about the data, see Section 5.

• Emergency Department Visit (Treated and Released)

  This option refers to patients treated for an injury in a United States hospital emergency department and then released without being hospitalized or transferred for specialized physical or psychological care. Secondary emergency department visits related to the same injury incident are not included in this category. The source of the data used to estimate the number of such visits is NEISS-AIP. For further information about the data, see Section 5.

Note: The hospitalization and emergency department visit categories include some patients who died subsequent to discharge from the emergency department, including in-hospital and late effects deaths. Instances in which such deaths occurred during the same calendar year covered by the NEISS-AIP data (2010) will also be included in the vital statistics (death) data. However, data from other sources suggest that the number of such cases is relatively small. For example, survey data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project³ for the year 2010 show that approximately 2.4% of patients admitted to a hospital for an injury (most of whom were initially treated in an emergency department) died while hospitalized.

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WISQARS Cost of Injury Reports