Emergency care surveillance and emergency care registries in low-income and middle-income countries: conceptual challenges and future directions for research

Abstract

Despite the fact that the 15 leading causes of global deaths and disability-adjusted life years are from conditions amenable to emergency care, and that this burden is highest in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), there is a paucity of research on LMIC emergency care to guide policy making, resource allocation and service provision. A literature review of the 550 articles on LMIC emergency care published in the 10-year period from 2007 to 2016 yielded 106 articles for LMIC emergency care surveillance and registry research. Few articles were from established longitudinal surveillance or registries and primarily composed of short-term data collection. Using these articles, a working group was convened by the US National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center to discuss challenges and potential solutions for established systems to better understand global emergency care in LMICs. The working group focused on potential uses for emergency care surveillance and registry data to improve the quality of services provided to patients. Challenges included a lack of dedicated resources for such research in LMIC settings as well as over-reliance on facility-based data collection without known correlation to the overall burden of emergency conditions in the broader community. The group outlined potential solutions including incorporating data from sources beyond traditional health records, use of standard clinical forms that embed data needed for research and policy making and structured population-based research to establish clear linkages between what is seen in emergency units and the wider community. The group then identified current gaps in LMIC emergency care surveillance and registry research to form a research agenda for the future.

Harnessing inter-disciplinary collaboration to improve emergency care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): results of research prioritisation setting exercise

“…Standardized emergency care registries are largely absent in most LMICs, due to a lack of standard clinical management and documentation in prehospital and facility settings [7,33]. However, the establishment of registries is slowly increasing in response to the growing body of evidence in support of trauma registries [34,35].…”

Healthcare in transition in the Republic of Armenia: A longitudinal mixed-method study of emergency medical systems

“…This data is important to direct quality assurance and improvement efforts. (19)(20)(21)(22) Although there is a paucity of o cial data and analysis, we would like to share data collected in three time frames from the years 2005-2010. This data was collected as part of a larger survey but is relevant to share and discuss in the framework of this manuscript.…”

Harnessing Inter-disciplinary Collaboration to Improve Emergency Care in Low- and Middle-income Countries (LMICS): Results of Research Prioritisation Setting Exercise

“…[31] Registries Standardized emergency care registries are largely absent in most LMICs, due to a lack of standard clinical management and documentation in prehospital and facility settings. [7,32] However, the establishment of registries is slowly increasing in response to the growing body of evidence in support of trauma registries. [33,34] There are signi cant challenges to establishing trauma registries in these settings.…”

“…Additional effort is needed to identify effective means of implementation of surveillance and registry systems that are adaptable to different settings including LMICs. [32] A framework for surveillance and registry research in low-resource emergency care settings is clearly needed.…”

“…Increasingly, a shift is being observed in emergency care surveillance in LMICs to categories of conditions such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries. [32] Hence, there is also a need to better describe the disease pro le of patients in LMICs who seek emergency care and understand the case mix better, particularly as this will impact on outcomes of these patients, including mortality rates.…”