Diagnoses, damned diagnoses and statistics: Dealing with disparate diagnostic coding systems within the New South Wales Emergency Department Data Collection

Emergency Medicine Australasia : EMA
Michael M DinhKendall J Bein

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to describe the distribution of Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT) codes used in the current New South Wales Emergency Department Data Collection (NSW EDDC) and classify duplicate and redundant terms into clinically meaningful sub-groups for future analyses. This was an analysis of ED diagnosis codes using a large state-wide administrative ED dataset between 2015 and 2018. A total of 7.4 million (77%) of ED episode diagnoses were coded with SNOMED-CT. Of those coded with SNOMED-CT, 12 152 unique codes were identified. Around 1000 of the most frequently used codes accounted for 90% of the presentations coded with SNOMED-CT and 5000 codes accounted for 99.8% of these. Around 7000 codes were deemed to be redundant, and duplication in terms exists across all sub-groups. The use of SNOMED-CT in the NSW EDDC has resulted in substantial use of non-specific, duplicate and redundant codes, limiting the capacity of the NSW EDDC to be used for effective data analysis.

References

Jan 8, 2010·Academic Emergency Medicine : Official Journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine·Jon Mark HirshonLinda F McCaig
Mar 16, 2011·The Medical Journal of Australia·David P HansenMichael J Lawley
Feb 9, 2012·Emergency Medicine Australasia : EMA·Siaw-Teng LiawJeremy Bunker
Mar 5, 2013·The Medical Journal of Australia·Murugabalaji K MohanJames L Mallows
Sep 24, 2013·PloS One·Katherine M HillerSuzanne Michelle Rhodes
Sep 17, 2016·International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research·Marie-Hélène MetzgerVéronique Potinet-Pagliaroli
Feb 9, 2018·Emergency Medicine Australasia : EMA·Anja A Ebker-WhiteMichael M Dinh

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Citations

Jan 21, 2020·Emergency Medicine Australasia : EMA·Andrew Staib, Andrew Hugman
Sep 29, 2019·Emergency Medicine Australasia : EMA·Peter JonesTom Morton
Mar 5, 2021·Emergency Medicine Journal : EMJ·Benjamin Michael BloomThomas C Hughes

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