Developing and Implementing Major League Baseball's Health and Injury Tracking System

Abstract

In 2010, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association reached an agreement regarding the development and implementation of an electronic medical record system and a new league-wide injury surveillance system. The systems were developed to create a more efficient method to track medical histories of players longitudinally as they move across Major and Minor league affiliates, as well as to identify and monitor injury trends in the sport, identify areas of specific concern, and conduct epidemiologic research to better optimize player health and safety. The resulting injury surveillance system, the Health and Injury Tracking System (HITS), is a robust system that includes all players from the both the Major and Minor Leagues. HITS also allows for data linkage with other player- and game-level data to inform the development of injury prevention policies and programs. In the present article, we document the development and implementation of HITS; describe its utility for epidemiologic research; illustrate the potential analytic strength of the surveillance system and its ability to inform policy change; and note the potential for this new surveillance system to advance the field of sports injury epidemiology.

Short-Term Outcomes of Concussions in Major League Baseball: A Historical Cohort Study of Return to Play, Performance, Longevity, and Financial Impact

“…13,15,16,20 Protocol changes implemented in 2011 included increased on-field screening for SRC and appropriate treatment, including 7 days on the disabled list following concussion. 15 We noted an increase in the number of reported SRCs in 2011 to 2017 (16.1 SRCs per year) compared with 2005 to 2010 (9.2 SRCs per year), suggesting that protocol changes may have resulted in an increased recognition and reporting of SRCs.…”

Epidemiology and Impact of Abdominal Oblique Injuries in Major and Minor League Baseball

“…The HITS database was created, approved, and implemented through a joint effort of MLB and the MLB Players Association (MLBPA) in 2010. 14 The overarching purpose of this electronic medical record (EMR) was to allow accurate, reliable, and consistent tracking of injuries occurring to all MLB and MiLB players to better understand how players were being injured, how they were treated, and how these injuries affected their play. Additional details on the HITS database have been published elsewhere.…”

“…14 This database permits a much more robust analysis of this commonly occurring injury than what has previously been reported. Injury data are entered by the athletic trainers and medical professionals caring for MLB and Minor League Baseball (MiLB) teams.…”

Public Health Surveillance Systems: Recent Advances in Their Use and Evaluation

“…The case studies on the Major League Baseball Health and Injury Tracking System (MLB HITS) and active transportation surveillance are examples of surveillance systems focused on noninfectious diseases (see Supplemental Case Studies 1 and 3). In particular, in the case of the MLB HITS, two non-public health entities, an industry (MLB) and its worker association, established a surveillance system to identify and monitor work-related injuries and associated risk factors and to assure the effectiveness of the intervention (64). Beyond the monitoring of individual risk factors and outcomes, surveillance systems have also been developed recently to monitor the presence, emergence, or evolution of infectious agents in the environment.…”