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Descriptive evaluation of methods for identifying work‐related emergency department injury visits
Author(s) -
Harduar Morano Laurel,
Richardson David,
Proescholdbell Scott
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.22984
Subject(s) - medicine , emergency department , diagnosis code , icd 10 , external cause , medical emergency , emergency medicine , occupational safety and health , injury prevention , poison control , environmental health , pathology , population , nursing
Background Use of worker's compensation (WC) as payer underestimates work‐related (WR) injuries. We evaluated three methods to identify WR injuries: WC as payer, ICD‐9‐CM work‐status codes E000.0/E000.1, and other ICD‐9‐CM external cause codes. Methods We identified injury‐related emergency department visits from North Carolina's syndromic surveillance system (2010‐2013). Characteristics were compared by indicator. We manually reviewed 800 admission notes to confirm if the visit was WR or non‐WR; WR keywords from the review were applied to all visits. Results 133 156 injury‐related visits (age, 16 years or older) were identified: WC = 69%, work‐status codes = 18%, other ICD‐9‐CM codes = 13%. Among manually reviewed visits: few visits identified by WC (0.3%) or work‐status codes (2%) were non‐WR, while 12% of other ICD‐9‐CM code identified visits were non‐WR; 53%, 46%, and 31% of visits identified by WC, work‐status codes, and other ICD‐9‐CM codes were WR, respectively. Conclusions Findings support use of WC and work‐status codes to capture WR injuries; other ICD‐9‐CM codes should be used with caution or in combination with other indicators.