Concept: Avoidable Hospitalizations

Introduction

Avoidable Hospitalizations are a set of 12 conditions for which hospitalization can be avoided if ambulatory care is provided in a timely and effective manner. (Weissman et al. 1992.) The conditions which are included in the grouping were those agreed upon by a panel of physicians and represent important health problems, which would be affected by appropriate ambulatory care, and have been used in previous studies.

NOTE: Only PRIMARY hospital diagnoses are used in identifying conditions.

ICD-9-CM Diagnoses Codes for Avoidable Hospitalizations

The following list identifies the Avoidable Hospitalization conditions and ICD-9-CM diagnoses codes that were used in the Population Health: Health Status Indicators deliverables by Cohen MM and MacWilliam L. in 1994. The list of codes is available in Appendix A, Table A2 in the deliverable Volume II: Tables and Figures.



Condition	ICD-9-CM Codes
Ruptured appendix	540.0, 540.1
Asthma	493
Cellulitis	681, 682
Congestive heart failure	428, 402.01, 402.11, 402.91
Diabetes	250.1, 250.2, 250.3, 251.0
Gangrene	785.4
Hypokalemia	276.8
Immunizable conditions	032, 033, 037, 072, 045, 055
Malignant hypertension	401.0, 402.0, 403.0, 404.0, 405.0, 437.2
Pneumonia	481, 482, 483, 485, 486
Pyelonephritis	590.0, 590.1, 590.8
Perforated or bleeding ulcer	531.0, 531.2, 531.4, 531.6, 532.0, 532.2, 532.4, 532.6, 533.0, 533.1, 533.2, 533.4, 533.5, 633.6

SAS Formats and Code

Formats are available from MCHP for preparing the datasets.

• avoid.fmt (format)
  
• avoid.lab (label)

SAS CODE:

Available from MCHP, developed by Leonard MacWilliam.