~ submitted by Lee Annest

New External-Cause–of-Injury (E codes) Report Released

Dear Injury Colleagues,

I wanted to make you aware of a new report that was just released by NCIPC entitled:

Recommended Actions to Improve External-Cause-of-Injury Coding in State-Based Hospital Discharge and Emergency Department Data Systems

CDC is providing national leadership in an effort to develop and implement strategies and action plans to improve external-cause-of-injury coding (E-coding) in state morbidity data systems.  Improving E-coding in state morbidity data systems can provide better data for setting priorities for injury prevention and trauma care programs and evaluating their effectiveness at the federal, state, and local levels.  In February 2009, CDC conducted a partners meeting to discuss E-coding issues relevant to state morbidity data systems and to make recommendations for improvements.

CDC’s Injury Center has released this report summarizing actions recommended by participants in the February meeting aimed at (1) improving communication and collaboration among stakeholders, (2) demonstrating a business case for high-quality E-coding, (3) improving the collection of high-quality E-coded data, and (4)  improving and promoting the usefulness of E-coded data for state injury prevention efforts.

This report is available on the CDC’s Injury Center Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/injury/data/ecode_report.html.

Please help us disseminate this to your other colleagues who you think might be interested.

Thanks much and best regards,

Lee Annest, PhD
Director, Office of Statistics and Programming
NCIPC, CDC