Orchard Sports Injury Classification System 10.1 plus: An end-user study

Context: Sports injury surveillance classification systems gather information on injury types, rates, mechanisms, and risk factors to objectively assess the risks of sports participation. Sport injuries have been examined thoroughly in previous studies; however, there is a need to create an easy to use, universal system to allow for the comparison of injury and interventions regardless of injury or setting. Objective: To establish the level of ease of use and effectiveness of the Orchard Sport Injury Classification System (OSICS) 10.1 Plus for recording injuries and interventions. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: Web-based survey. Patients or Other Participants: Three hundred and forty-two (males=148, females=192, no response=2; age=30.9+/-9.5y; experience=9.1+/-10.5y) athletic trainers (ATs) in the United States completed the survey. Participants were primarily employed in the secondary school (n= 135) or collegiate setting (n=171). The injury data were collected on 342 patients (males=246, females=96). Interventions: Participating athletic trainers entered injury and intervention data from one patient into the OSICS 10.1 Plus. The OSICS 10.1 Plus system utilizes the OSICS 10.1 to injury surveillance to document injury and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes to document interventions. Participants were then asked to complete an 18-item end-user evaluation tool to establish demographic information, assess the ease of use and effectiveness of the OSICS 10.1 Plus based on a 5 point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) and open-ended questions to elicit feedback. Main Outcome Measures: We analyzed characteristics of central tendency to determine ease of use and effectiveness of the OCISC 10.1 Plus. Results: Participants indicated that the OSICS 10.1 Plus is overall easy to use (4.1+/-0.7pts), easy to enter an injury (4.1+/-0.8pts), and easy to enter the associated interventions (3.9+/-0.8pts). Respondents indicated that they neither agreed nor disagreed that the OSICS 10.1 Plus matched their current injury (3.5+/-1.0pts) or intervention (3.5+/-0.9pts) records. A majority of participants indicated that they could find the injury (281/342, 82.2%) and interventions (225/342, 65.8%) of interest. A majority of respondents (205/342, 60.0%) indicated they would consider using OSICS 10.1 Plus for injury surveillance at their institution. However, the open-ended feedback indicated that there is a misunderstanding of the purpose of injury surveillance as opposed to medical documentation. Some participants were looking for the specificity of medical documentation as opposed to injury surveillance. Conclusions: Preliminary results of this end-user study indicate that participants agree that OSICS 10.1 Plus is easy to use. The OSICS 10.1 Plus could serve as an effective and useful mechanism for injury surveillance with minor modifications. We, as a profession, need to work to improve regular medical documentation first, as we continue to develop easy to use and effective injury surveillance tools.