CHIRPP

How does CHIRPP work?

CHIRPP is a computerized information system that collects and analyzes data on injuries and poisonings from the emergency departments of 16 hospitals across Canada. It began with 10 pediatric hospitals and has expanded to include six general hospitals. The general hospitals also provide records on adults, but the primary focus of the program is on children and youth 19 years of age and younger.

When an injured child is brought to the emergency room of a participating hospital, the accompanying adult (or the patient, if he or she is old enough) is asked to complete a one-page questionnaire ("CHIRPP form") about the injury incident. Questions on the form concern the circumstances surrounding the injury: what the child was doing at the time, what actually caused the injury, the factors that contributed to the injury, the time and place the injury occurred, and the age and sex of the patient. The attending physician fills out the other side of the CHIRPP form, providing details on the nature of the injury, body part injured and treatment received.

At each hospital there are two people who administer the program, the CHIRPP director (often the Director of the Emergency Department) who oversees the project, and the CHIRPP coordinator, who makes sure CHIRPP forms are being handed out and completed. The cumulative national database resides in Ottawa at Health Canada's Laboratory Centre for Disease Control (LCDC). The CHIRPP coordinator regularly forwards the completed forms to the Child Injury Division of LCDC, where the information is entered into the CHIRPP database. Data entry clerks code information on more than 40 variables and write a single line of text describing "what happened" based on the account provided by the parent or patient.

[CHIRPP - A Unique Source of Child Injury Information]

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