New York CODES Project NEW YORK


PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) required NHTSA to analyze the safety benefits of safety belt and motorcycle helmet laws. To do this, NHTSA would need to be able to link information about individual crashes to hospital records in order to determine the relationship between safety belt and helmet use and injury severity and medical costs. NHTSA found that this information was not accessible in most states because there were no linkages between traffic records and hospital records. The Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) was established to encourage states to establish these linkages in order to conduct their own analysis of relationships between crash, vehicle and driver characteristics, and medical outcomes. New York was one of seven states awarded a special grant to establish a CODES program.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of the CODES project in New York was to create linkages between state data files for police crash reports, emergency medical services, hospital emergency departments, hospital discharge files, insurance claims and other sources in order to support highway safety and public health decision-making.

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES

An initial step in the CODES project was the establishment of a CODES Advisory Committee, comprised of the data owners (e.g. hospitals, the Department of Transportation) and others interested in analyzing the linked data. These committee members had to be convinced that the

New York CODES Project (cont'd)

goal of linking their records would benefit their organizations, as well as improve the quality of

data analysis at the state and national levels.

Once a cooperative relationship was established, attention was focused on identifying common data fields, creating more uniform data definitions, and identifying missing or incomplete data. The CODES software then made it possible to trace the records for a crash victim through the health care system in order to determine the types of injuries sustained, the short and long-term care required, the costs for this care and the source of payment for resulting treatment.

RESULTS

In addition to responding to NHTSA's request for safety belt and motorcycle helmet information, New York State was able to use the linked data for several other important state-level analyses: