The influence of a specific ophthalmological electronic health record on ICD-10 coding

BACKGROUND: A specific Electronic Health Record (EHR) for ophthalmology was introduced in an academic center in Germany. As diagnoses coding corresponding to the International Classification of Diseases Version 10 (ICD-10) is mandatory for billing reasons in Germany, we analyzed whether a change occurred in the diversity and number of diagnoses after the EHR introduction. The number of patients was also analyzed. Proper diagnoses coding is of the utmost importance for further data analysis or billing. METHODS: Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) were created by using Advanced Business Application Programming language in EHR “i.s.h.med.” Development of an EHR was conducted in close collaboration between physicians and software engineers. ICD-10 coding was implemented by using a “hit list” and a search engine for diagnoses. An observational analysis of a 6-month period prior to and after the introduction of an ophthalmological specific EHR was conducted by investigating the diversity and number of diagnoses in various ophthalmological disease categories and the number of patient consultations. RESULTS: During the introduction of a specific ophthalmological EHR, we observed a significant increase in the emergency department cases (323.9 vs. 359.9 cases per week), possibly related to documentation requirements. The number of scheduled outpatients didn’t change significantly (355.12 vs. 360.24 cases per week). The variety of diagnoses also changed: on average, 156.2 different diagnoses were made per week throughout our hospital before the EHR launch, compared to 186.8 different diagnoses per week thereafter (p < 0.05). Additionally, a significantly higher number of diagnoses per case and per week were observed in both emergency and subspecialty outpatient clinics (1.15 vs. 1.22 and 1.10 vs. 1.47, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: An optimized EHR was created for ophthalmological needs and for simplified ICD-10 coding. The implementation of digital patient recording increased the diversity of the diagnoses used per case as well as the number of diagnoses coded per case. A general limitation to date is the suboptimal precision of ICD-10 coding in ophthalmology. Correct coding is of utmost importance for future data analysis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12911-016-0340-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.