Should International Classification of Diseases codes be used to survey hospital-acquired pneumonia?

Publication date: Available online 2 February 2018 Source:Journal of Hospital Infection Author(s): Aline Wolfensberger, Angela H. Meier, Stefan P. Kuster, Tarun Mehra, Marie-Theres Meier, Hugo Sax As surveillance of hospital acquired pneumonia (HAP) is very resource intensive, alternatives for HAP-surveillance are urgently needed. We compared HAP-rates according to routine discharge diagnostic codes of the International Classification of Diseases, tenth Revision (ICD-10; ICD-HAP) and the validated surveillance definitions of the Hospitals in Europe Link for Infection Control through Surveillance (HELICS/IPSE; HELICS-HAP) by manual retrospective reevaluation of patient records. We found a positive predictive value and sensitivity of ICD-HAP for HELICS-HAP of 0.35 and 0.59, respectively. We therefore conclude that the currently available ICD-10-based routine discharge data does not allow reliable identification of patients with HAP.
Source: Journal of Hospital Infection - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research