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Definition

The diagnosis established after study to be chiefly responsible for occasioning an episode of admitted patient care, an episode of residential care or an attendance at the health care establishment, as represented by a code.

Components

Data Element (this item)

Comments

Guide for use:

The principal diagnosis must be determined in accordance with the Australian Coding Standards. Each episode of admitted patient care must have a principal diagnosis and may have additional diagnoses. The diagnosis can include a disease, condition, injury, poisoning, sign, symptom, abnormal finding, complaint, or other factor influencing health status.

As a minimum requirement the Principal diagnosis code must be a valid code from the current edition of ICD-10-AM.

For episodes of admitted patient care, some diagnosis codes are too imprecise or inappropriate to be acceptable as a principal diagnosis and will group to an error DRG in the Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups.

Diagnosis codes starting with a V, W, X or Y, describing the circumstances that cause an injury, rather than the nature of the injury, cannot be used as principal diagnosis. Diagnosis codes which are morphology codes cannot be used as principal diagnosis.

Origin:

National Centre for Classification in Health

National Data Standard for Injury Surveillance Advisory Group

Comments:
The principal diagnosis is one of the most valuable health data elements. It is used for epidemiological research, casemix studies and planning purposes.

References

Related content

Relation Count
Input in Derivations 0
Output in Derivations 0
Inclusion in Data Set Specifications 17
Inclusion in Data Distributions 0
As a numerator in an Indicator 25
As a denominator in an Indicator 3
As a disaggregation in an Indicator 4