Reconsidering injury severity: Looking beyond the maximum abbreviated injury score.

MAIS is an anatomical-based discriminative measure for injury severity that correlates with several other severity measures including hospital stay and healthcare costs. However, MAIS is not always a proper indicator for severity when severity involves the patient's psychological burden or perceived health status. In sum, the accuracy of MAIS as an indicator for injury severity depends on the definition of severity and the injury type. Therefore, caution is needed when using and interpreting MAIS as an indicator for injury severity in research or policymaking.