Development and validation of the urgency algorithm to predict compelling injuries

The URGENCY algorithm uses data from on-board crash recorders to assist in identifying crashes that are most likely to have time critical (compelling) injuries. The injury risks projected by using the NASS/CDS data are the basis for the URGENCY algorithm. This study applied the algorithm retrospectively to a population of injured occupants in the database from the University of Miami School of Medicine, William Lehman Injury Research Center (WLIRC). The population selected was adult occupants in frontal crashes that were protected by three-point belts plus an air bag.

For the cases with greater than 50% predicted MAIS 3+ injury probability, 96% of the occupants in the study had MAIS 3+ injuries. For the cases with less than 10% predicted MAIS 3+ injury probability, 63% did not have MAIS 3+ injuries. Most of the of MAIS 3+ injuries not predicted involved injuries in multiple impact crashes, pole crashes or close-in occupants injured by air bag deployment. Modifications to the URGENCY algorithm to include predictors for these three factors significantly improved accuracy of the MAIS 3+ injury predictions.