Introduction: There have been several head injury monitoring studies undertaken in the last twenty years but only relatively few have included both high resolution and high quality physiological and patient management data. Patient numbers in these individual projects are relatively small, and methods of data collection vary from centre to centre, so it can be difficult to make comparisons between different studies. BrainIT is a transnational multi centre, European Project to collect high quality physiological and clinical data from 300 severely head injured patients from 30 neurotrauma centres.
Aim: In order to detect subtle differences that new therapeutic and management strategies can produce in the care of head injured patients, research studies need to ensure that data collection methodologies for physiological, management and demographic data are reliable and repeatable. The aim is to standardise data collection methods throughout participating centres, and store a validated dataset for use in future analysis.
Methods: A core dataset has been previously defined[1]. Minute by minute physiological data is recorded using site specific collection tools. Clinical management information is recorded on a handheld computer at the bedside. Data is transferred to Glasgow via the internet and a database is populated with the information in a common format. Country specific validators manage the process of data validation that is initiated from Glasgow using custom designed tools. There are currently seven UK participating centres, and these are: Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Queens Square and Southampton.
Results: Currently there are 15 centres actively participating and a total of 187 patients have been recruited. All data has been transferred via the BrainIT web site to a server in Glasgow where computer software highlights areas of missing or ambiguous data. Requests are sent to the centre contributing the data and a completed data list is returned to Glasgow. A random sample of 20% of data are selected for validation and it is this data which may be used for future analysis.
Conclusion: BrainIT is a European collaboration which aims to standardise the collection of data using a defined dataset and specially designed software. The group have demonstrated the feasibility of the collection of monitoring and patient management data and populated a common database. The development of a common database to store the data and the use of validation techniques provide a dataset which may be accessed and used by those collaborating in the project.
Reference: 1. Piper IR, Citerio G, Chambers IR, Contant C, Enblad P, Fiddes H, Howells T, Kiening K, Nilsson P, Yau YH, for the BrainIT group (2003). The BrainIT group: concept and core dataset definition. Acta Neurochirurgica 145: 615-629.
Barnes J, Chambers I, Piper I, Citerio G, Enblad P, Howells T, Kiening K, Mattern J, Nilsson P, Ragauskas A, Sahuquillo J, Yau YH, for the BrainIT Group. BrainIT: Standardising data collection from head-injured patients. Oral presentation at the British Neurosurgical Research Group meeting. The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. 3-4th March 2005.
Sister Jane Barnes, NGH Unit, Newcastle upon Tyne. Tel: +44 (0)191-233-6161.
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