ICD-10 Classification in the Practice of Emergency Medical Teams: New Insights
Krzysztof Marek Mitura, Jadwiga Snarska, Daniel Celiński, Dominik Maślach, Piotr Leszczyński, Aneta Binkowska, Leszek Szpakowski, Sławomir Dariusz Szajda
Abstract
The role of the emergency medical system is to provide assistance to every person in a state in the event of a sudden threat to health and life. Emergency medical teams (EMTs) are an important element of this system, making diagnoses based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). The study was aimed at analysing the causes of EMT intervention based on groups of diagnoses codified according to the ICD-10. The analysis was based on data from 116,278 EMT interventions in central-eastern Poland in 2017-2019. The research showed that EMT most often made diagnoses based on groups of ICD-10 codes: R00-R99-Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (39.11%); S00-T98-Injury, poisoning, and certain other consequences of external causes (18.23%); and I00-I99-Diseases of the circulatory system (15.57%). The analysis of the obtained results showed statistically significant differences ( <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><a:mi>p</a:mi><a:mo><</a:mo><a:mn>0.0001</a:mn></a:math> ) regarding the area of intervention (urban, rural), sex, age of the patient, and the method of completion of the activities by EMTs in relation to the group of ICD-10 diagnoses for the diagnosis. The conducted study showed the actual reasons for EMT calls. The use of the ICD-10 classification has practical application in EMTs, as it enables the identification of a disease or health problem.