Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Sep 2016
Multicenter StudyThe Validity of Discharge Billing Codes Reflecting Severe Maternal Morbidity.
Discharge diagnoses are used to track national trends and patterns of maternal morbidity. There are few data regarding the validity of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes used for this purpose. The goal of our study was to try to better understand the validity of administrative data being used to monitor and assess trends in morbidity. ⋯ ICD-9-CM codes capturing severe maternal morbidity during delivery hospitalization demonstrate a range of PPVs. The PPV was high when objective supportive evidence, such as laboratory values or procedure documentation supported the ICD-9-CM code. The PPV was low when greater judgment, interpretation, and synthesis of the clinical data (signs and symptoms) was required to support a code, such as with the category Severe anesthesia complications. As a result, these codes should be used for administrative research with more caution compared with codes primarily defined by objective data.