Trauma patients without a trauma diagnosis: the data gap at a level one trauma center.

Background: Trauma registries may contain records without a codable trauma diagnosis, creating a "data gap" that multiplies the number of invalid registry data fields. We designed an investigation intended to determine the incidence of registry records with noncodable trauma diagnoses, characterize those records, and determine the reasons for inadequate diagnosis data.

Methods: We used a retrospective cohort design.