Usefulness of ICD-10 diagnosis triggers to identify adverse drug events in emergency care.

Objectives: To assess the usefulness of a tool based on ICD-10 diagnostic codes to identify patients who consult an emergency department for adverse drug events (ADE).
Methods: Prospective observational study, in which patients discharged from an emergency department during May to August 2022 with a diagnosis coded with one of the 27 ICD-10 diagnoses considered as triggers were included. ADE confirmation was carried out by analyzing drugs prescribed prior to admission, and through a discussion among experts and a phone interview with patients after hospital discharge.
Results: 1,143 patients with trigger diagnoses were evaluated, of which 310 (27.1%) corresponded to patients whose emergency visit was attributed to an ADE. A 58.4% of ADE consultations were found with three diagnostic codes: K59.0-Constipation (n = 87; 28.1%), I16.9-Hypertensive Crisis (n = 72; 23.2%) and I95.1-Orthostatic hypotension (n = 22; 7.1%). The diagnoses with the highest degree of association with consultations attributed to ADE were E16.2-Hypoglycemia, unspecified (73.7%) and E11.65-Type 2 diabetes mellitus with hyperglycemia (71.4%), while diagnoses D62-Acute posthemorrhagic anemia and I74.3-Embolism and thrombosis of arteries of the lower limbs were not attributed to any case of ADE.
Conclusions: The ICD-10 codes associated with trigger diagnoses are a useful tool to identify patients who consult the emergency services with ADE and could be used to apply secondary prevention programs to avoid new consultations to the health care system.
(Copyright © 2023 Sociedad Española de Farmacia Hospitalaria (S.E.F.H). Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)