Diagnosis of COPD in Hospitalised Patients

A comprehensive care plan that reduces readmissions after acute exacerbations of COPD

“…In the absence of spirometry to confirm a diagnosis of COPD, ICD codes are often used as a substitute in studies evaluating the efficacy of AECOPD care plans. This study confirms the work of others [33,[35][36][37][38][39][40] that ICD coding is an imperfect substitute for spirometric confirmation of airflow obstruction. Wu et al [40] illustrate how often an ICD code for COPD is either unsupported or shown to be incorrect by spirometric testing.…”