Context We describe baseline and preliminary follow-up data of a study aimed at improving injury surveillance data quality of hospitals contributing to the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD).

Process Sequential study phases included baseline data quality analysis, direct engagement and communication with ED hospital sites, collection of survey and interview data, 6 month follow-up of data quality and ongoing monitoring.

Analysis Baseline and 6 month follow-up data quality analyses were performed across core injury surveillance variables. Survey and interview data analysed to identify key facilitators and barriers to data quality.

Results

There were 371,683 VEMD injury-related ED presentations recorded in 2019/20. Percentage unspecified, indicator of (poor) data quality, was lowest for Body Region (2.7%) and Injury Type (7.4%), and highest for Activity when Injured (29.4%). In the latter, contributing hospitals ranged from 3.0%- 99.9% unspecified. For the Description of Event variable 16/38 hospitals had an average narrative word count of <5. Preliminary effects of the hospital engagement intervention on data quality at 6 month follow-up will be described.

Learning Outcomes Baseline hospital injury surveillance data varied vastly in data quality. Hospital engagement and feedback described in this study is expected to have a marked effect on data quality ensuring that Victorian injury surveillance data can fulfil their purpose to accurately inform injury prevention policy and practice. This project is at the core of working toward Sustainable Development Goals in injury prevention as without trustworthy, reliable injury data of the highest quality, injury prevention efforts may not be appropriately informed.