Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 10, numbers 1 and 2, 2018 // View article
Authors:
Cecília Coimbra
Marisa Esteves
Filipe Miranda
Filipe Portela
Manuel Filipe Santos
José Machado
António Abelha
Keywords: ICD-9-CM; ICD-10-CM/PCS; Hospital Discharge; Diagnosis-related Group; Single-page Application; Proof of Concept
Abstract:
In recent years, in Centro Hospitalar do Porto (CHP), there has been felt an increasing need for a computerized clinical coding tool to aid in the codification of the episodes of hospital discharges from patients admitted to its healthcare units. The process was slow and performed manually by the coding professionals, so there was neither the centralization nor the unification of the information and processes associated with the clinical coding of a hospital discharge. Hereupon, in the context of this study, the aim of the present work was to design and develop a clinical coding tool for ICD-9-CM to support the clinical practice in healthcare units. It additionally included its subsequent transition to the newer ICD-10-CM/PCS coding version. In short, the codification of hospital discharge processes enables the grouping of episodes into diagnosis-related groups (DRGs). The main motivation for the implementation of this classification system is that it provides a financial and patient classification system to contain the costs and waste associated with healthcare services. Thereby, a single-page application (SPA) for ICD-9-CM was designed in order to help health professionals of CHP in their daily work, namely the clinical coding of the episodes of hospital discharges, and it was subsequently updated to the ICD-10-CM/PCS coding version that predominantly improved specificity in describing clinical situations. The main advantages and contributions of the development and use of this Web application are the centralization of information and tasks associated with the coding of hospital discharges, the increase of productivity, and the reduction of wastes of time. Consequently, the ambition is sought to mainly improve the quantity and the quality of work performed by coding professionals at CHP.
Pages: 23 to 30
Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2018. Used with permission.
Publication date: June 30, 2018
Published in: journal
ISSN: 1942-2660