Data-Driven Disaster Management Requires Data: Implementation of a Military Orthopaedic Trauma Registry

The Military Orthopaedic Trauma Registry (MOTR) is a comprehensive joint service registry of military orthopaedic injuries. Conceived in 2006, MOTR is now operational for retrospective data entry and prospective data collection of extremity injuries sustained by U.S. service members serving in current Overseas Contingency Operations. Running in tandem with data from the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research’s Joint Theater Trauma Registry (JTTR), MOTR augments the casualty data included in JTTR with additional orthopaedic specific data (i.e., the injury patterns, characteristics, treatment, and complications associated with extremity war injuries). Extremity war injuries are the major clinical burden of the current conflicts. However, the scope of the injuries in detail useful to the orthopaedic researcher has never been prospectively collected. MOTR is designed to fill that gap in extremity trauma research. As such, MOTR represents an evolutionary step in the refinement of data-driven disaster management. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 20(1):56–61, 2011)