Injury prevention and the trauma care provider.

The costs of trauma-related injury in terms of morbidity and mortality and health care dollars expended are enormous. This article identifies various resources that can be used to develop injury prevention strategies. Injury data are required to determine what injury prevention activities are needed. Various sources of injury data include: 1) patient care documentation; 2) Emergency Visit Record; and 3) the trauma registry. Trauma care providers play a critical role in injury prevention efforts, from documenting the endemic level of injuries due to crashes through educating patients and communities about prevention activities. For trauma care providers, the benefit is in the time and dollars saved in not having to care for injury prevention failures. These resources can then be targeted for other health care priorities. In seeking cost effective health care, prevention is an important part of the solution. The IHS Injury Prevention initiative is designed to improve the health status of entire Indian communities and reservations.