Effectiveness of Using Icd-9 to Track Clostridium Difficile in Acute Care Hospitals

Effectiveness of Using ICD-9 to Track Clostridium Difficile in Acute Care Hospitals

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) continue to be a major problem for illnesses acquired in acute care hospitals in spite of recent efforts from hospitals, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other stakeholders. One of these HAIs, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), is a predominant bacterium that contributes to increased healthcare costs, morbidity and readmission issues despite its preventability. In 2011, according to the CDC, an estimated half million people were infected with C. diff in the United States and 29,000 died within a month of the initial diagnosis (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015).

Throughout the country, surveillance and prevention projects have surfaced to find ways to decrease the occurrence of HAIs such as C. diff. While at this time, no single surveillance method has been able to provide an accurate rate as to the overall burden of HAIs (Magill, et al., 2014), the question has been raised as to the effectiveness of using administrative data, specifically ICD-9 codes for the tracking of HAIs. This paper will discuss the increasing incidence of C. diff as a problematic HAI; its impact on health policy; surveillance and prevention methods; and the effectiveness of using ICD-9 to track HAIs, specifically focusing of C. diff; as well as, ways this data could be used through data mapping and in benchmarking to facilitate aiding in decreasing the incidence of C. diff., thus increasing patient safety.

Role of C. diff in HAIs

Types of HAIs

HAIs, also known as nosocomial infections, are infections that occur after a patient has been admitted into the hospital that were not present or incubating at the time of admission. Diseases and organisms can cause infections that occur due to unsafe healthcare practices, poor patient immunity, high-risk procedures and inappropriate use of devices. Four types of infections...