The 1989 report to Congress, "Cost of Injury in the United States", recommends a national coordinated program of injury surveillance be developed which would "rely on the integration of uniformly collected data derived from multiple sources at both the national and state levels". The results of this original research will help ensure current and future accuracy of external cause of injury data. Two major related projects will be accomplished in Phase 1: the preparation of a comprehensive report covering the major issues and problems with external cause of injury coding utilizing ICD-9-CM E codes, and the development of the draft of a framework of a crosswalk between the Ninth and Tenth Revisions of ICD. The report will address: E code rules; compare ICD9 and ICD-9-CM E code requirements; compare experiences of states mandating E codes ; documentation problems; compare E code groupings used by injury programs. The framework of the crosswalk will be prepared in a format suitable for computerization. Phase I will also be used to develop the testing and evaluation methodologies to be used in Phase II. The long term goal is to develop an interactive software product for use in assigning and displaying external cause codes in ICD-9 and ICD-10.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:A software program for an external cause of injury encoder can be used by federal, state, and local agencies, universities, and other organizations involved in injury research. It can be used in hospitals to assist with new requirements for E code use and may eventually be employed in ambulatory settings.National Center for Environmental Health and Injury Control(NCEHIC)
