Associated with these changes has been the addition to the Australian ICD of a short list of types of sport, provided to give some insight into the sports in which admitted sports injury cases occur. These are useful improvements, but the available data are still limited. For this and other reasons it is not yet possible to produce meaningful national trends. These problems may resolve with experience and as the hospital data provided by State and Territory systems become more comparable. Data on sports injury experience from sources such as this can only provide part of the information needed for sports safety.
Information is needed to guide program planning and implementation.
The former purpose needs information characterising distribution of injuries and injury risk. The latter tends to require data to monitor progress in implementation and changes in injury rates. Attention to improving the match between the information available and the information needed is one of the concerns of SportSafe.