Validity of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) screening for sepsis in surgical mortalities.

Background: Sepsis is among the leading causes of death in the United States. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality uses International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) billing code screening for the identification of sepsis. We investigated the incidence of sepsis in mortality at our academic medical center through ICD-9-CM screening of billing codes corresponding to sepsis and compared this approach for accuracy using physician chart review as the gold-standard.

Validity of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators at an academic medical center.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality developed Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) to screen for in-hospital complications and patient safety events through International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification coding. The purpose of this study was to validate 10 common surgically related PSIs at our academic medical center and investigate the causes for inaccuracies. We reviewed patient records between October 2011 and September 2012 at our urban academic medical center for 10 common surgically related PSIs.