NCAA PRESIDENTIAL TASK FORCE ON THE FUTURE OF DIVISION I INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS STUDENT-ATHLETE WELL-BEING SUBCOMMITTEE Mandatory Participation in the NCAA Injury Surveillance System A Tool for Health and Safety Risk Management and Informed Decision Making Issue. At its June 2005 meeting, the NCAA Presidential Task Force on the Future of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Student-Athlete Well-Being Subcommittee identified the issue of mandatory participation in the NCAA Injury Surveillance System as an issue warranting further discussion. Background. The NCAA Injury Surveillance System has been a vital component in the Association’s riskmanagement, policy-development and rules-making processes since 1982. Injury data is collected annually from a sample of NCAA member institutions through athletic trainers. This data is then used by the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports, NCAA legal counsel and various sports and rules committees as a foundation for health and safety decision making at the national level. The NCAA converted to a Web-based injury data collection system in August 2004. It is anticipated that this technology will enhance the quantity, quality and real-time access to injury information. In the past year, the Web system has been expanded so that current data from all NCAA championships and emerging sports can be collected. Data collection is possible over the entire academic year, not just the traditional sport season, so that the out-of-season conditioning, nontraditional seasons and other activities can be monitored. The Web-based Injury Surveillance System addresses important issues at the national, conference and institutional levels. It falls directly under the auspices of the Association’s strategic plan in the areas of informed decision making, risk management, efficient use of technology and student-athlete welfare. At the national, conference and institutional levels, the system allows users to enhance their ability to make informed decisions that relate directly to the welfare of all student-athletes. It is important to note that athletic trainers are at the heart of the Injury Surveillance System. The Web-based tool has been designed to maximize the incentive to participate by being designed to meet the day-to-day needs of athletic trainers. It does not cost the institutions to participate and the Injury Surveillance System can be a primary electronic medical/legal institutional record that enhances informed decision making and risk management at the institutional, conference, division and national level. Yet even with these incentives, there are some sports that are not achieving a representative sample, based on the voluntary nature of participation. In order for the system to be maximally effective, it is vital that the national samples in all sports are represented and contain a sufficient
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number of institutions to ensure that data is statistically sound. Otherwise, the data underlying what may be controversial decisions can be called into question. It seems to be in the best interest of all student-athletes to mandate that this system be used by the membership of the Association to help enhance the health and safety of all student-athletes. In fact, prior to this upcoming season, the rules committees from women’s volleyball and softball distributed letters to all schools sponsoring these respective sports encouraging participation in the Injury Surveillance System (Attachment). However, this type of encouragement may not be enough to ensure adequacy of samples in all NCAA sports. Proposal. Given the NCAA’s 20-year commitment to injury data collection, the recent technology enhancements, the established value of Injury Surveillance System to the Association’s decision making and the lack of representative data in some sports using a voluntary system, it is proposed to mandate participation in the NCAA Web-based data collection system for all member institutions. Specifics. Each member institution would be required to record a minimum number of sports annually using the Web-based Injury Surveillance System. This number (probably no more than five) would allow a minimum 20 percent representative sample of injury data in each sport in which the NCAA sponsors a championship. Institutions would be free to record more (or even all) of their sports if desired; but given financial and time constraints for data entry and other roadblocks, mandating injury data for all sports is not seen as practical at this time. If implemented, this legislation will provide an annual representative sample of injury data occurring in each NCAA championship sport. This information will be shared annually with appropriate rules and policy making committees to provide a foundation for informed decision making. There are a few specific issues that will have be to overcome to mandate collection of Injury Surveillance System data. It is our belief that these can be overcome; but once initial approval of this proposal is done, it is recommended that NCAA staff work with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and others to address these issues. Specific issues might include: (1) confidentiality of protected health information stored on NCAA servers; (2) lack of appropriate hardware and software in athletics training rooms at member institutions; (3) athletic trainer time and resource allocation to enter data; (4) use of existing injury-tracking software on some campuses; and (5) insufficient NCAA staff to handle increased data and demands for access to the data.
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Summary. The Injury Surveillance System is a vital risk-management component of the Association’s student-athlete welfare commitment. This no-cost injury data and analysis tool allows informed risk-management decisions to be made at the institutional and conference level, while simultaneously providing the Association with aggregate information from which to base national health and safety policies. It is established and has already been a major contributor to the Association’s health and safety policy. Mandating a level of participation solidifies the data for informed decision making for every NCAA championship sport, while simultaneously creating similar risk-management resources at the division, conference and institutional level. Preliminary support of this concept, in light of the possible trouble spots, will allow staff to pursue the development of this concept in conjunction with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and other relevant parties.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association January 19, 2006 BAH/BN:ld/jcw