Clarification form for catheter associated uti

donna.kent

I've gone back and read the thread from May 2011 regarding foley related uti. We are having a bit of trouble getting a united approach in trying to address this issue with IC. Their criteria allows them to make certain assumptions. HOWEVER, that is not appropriate for CDI or coding. I'm revising our form and requesting that IC use this to achieve compliance with coding rules and guidelines. Any other advice and or actual forms to share please?

Donna

mdominesey

From my time as an Infection Control Practitioner, I agree that their standards are different from ours. It is not appropriate for us to use their standards to code a diagnosis. The only time we can code a diagnosis is when it is documented by the physician. Most ICPs are nurses, and we cannot code from nurse's documentation, but we certainly can use their documentation if we feel a query is necessary to the physician. It is true that ICPs make certain assumptions that we cannot make; they report different statistics to different regulatory bodies than we do.

We should work with them, however.

I meet with the adverse event (which includes HAIs) workgroup of the Infection Control Department, as well as serving on the Infection Control Committee. This has been helpful for me to help walk through why certain conditions may or may not be infections, and I can question why they may report an infection that is not in the body of the record. CDI's focus on clear, consistent, specific information can help them as much as they can help us.

Kindest Regards,

Mark



Mark N. Dominesey, RN, BSN, MBA, CCDS, CDIP
Clinical Documentation Excellence
Sr. Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist
Sibley Memorial Hospital

Information Technology
5255 Loughboro Rd NW
Washington DC, 20016-2695

W: 202.660.6782
F: 202.537.4477
mdominesey@sibley.org

http://www.sibley.org