Utah CODES Project | UTAH |
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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 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 analyses of relationships between crash, vehicle and driver characteristics, and medical
outcomes. Utah was one of seven states awarded a special grant to establish a CODES program.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The goal of the CODES project in Utah 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. This goal can only be reached by establishing a cooperative relationship
between the Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, hospitals
and rehabilitation centers throughout the state and the private insurance industry.
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
Utah CODES Project (cont'd)
goal of linking their records would benefit them individually, 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 an individual involved in a
crash 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 this
treatment.
RESULTS
In addition to responding to NHTSA's request for safety belt and motorcycle helmet information,
Utah was able to use the linked data for several other important State-level analyses: