Accuracy of obese patient admission data recorded by the Western Australian Country Health Service: A pilot study
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Health, Safety and Environment
Publisher
Wolters Kluwer CCH
School
Graduate Research School / School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
35449
Abstract
Accurate obese patient admission data can inform risk management strategies and assist in mitigating patient-handling risks to healthcare staff who manage obese patients. This pilot study investigates the accuracy of obesity coded data within the Western Australian Country Health Service (WACHS) patient admission data and examines factors potentially affecting obesity data accuracy. The examinations involved only patients with Type II Diabetes and comprised of a manual extraction and comparison of obesity-related data within patient records and electronic patient admission data to determine accuracy.
The results of the Type II Diabetes patient data examination demonstrated poor recording of weight (59%), height (15%) and BMI when weight and height measurements were recorded (8%). Poor obesity data accuracy was also determined by low sensitivity results (41%), high false negative results (59%) and a Cohen’s kappa value of 0.48. The sensitivity result demonstrates that only 41% of obese patients were coded as obese when obesity is recorded in their patient files and the false negative result demonstrates that where obesity notations were present in patient files, 59% of these cases were incorrectly coded as ‘normal weighted’. The Cohen’s kappa result demonstrated that there is only moderate agreement (0.48) between the occurrences of coded obesity and the recorded obese patient notations in the patient files. These results support the finding that further analysis is required to inform enhancements to improve obesity recording and coding accuracy, which will enable the collection of reliable data that could be used to reduce obese patient handling risks to nurses and other healthcare staff.
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McClean, K., Cross, M., & Reed, S. (2021). Accuracy of obese patient admission data recorded by the Western Australian Country Health Service: A pilot study. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Health, Safety and Environment, 35(1), 107-117.
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en-au/solutions/cch-intelliconnect-apac/journal-of-health-safety-environment