Injury MICA - Optional Variables

Mechanism

The Injury MICA categorizes all E-codes according to a mechanism of injury. The causes of the injuries are defined according to the external-cause codes (E codes) of the International Classification of Diseases-9th Revision-Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). This coding system is used by hospitals to record the injuries and diseases of their patients. The E-codes and diagnosis codes are used to define injury causes and determine whether a patient’s records should be included in this MICA.

Injury Location

Based on the patient record each injury is assigned to have occurred in a general location on the body.

Many MICAs contain a category of variables called 'Optional Variables'. These variables are often specific to each MICA topic. Therefore, the presence and types of Optional Variables will vary between MICAs.

All Level Users

All Level Users will find the following Optional Variables available for the Injury MICA:

Patient Type

The injuries in this MICA are those recorded by hospitals for their emergency room patients and inpatients, as reported by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Patient Abstract System (PAS). Users can select to view Inpatient records, Emergency Room records, or all records.

Intention

Injury MICA categorizes all injuries based on four intentions (unintentional: accidental or no intent to hurt anyone; assault: intent to injure others; legal intervention/war;  self-injury: intent to injure oneself; and unknown intent: intention cannot be determined). For example, firearms can be used with the intent of injuring oneself or others or they can injure people accidentally.

Pay Source

Inpatient hospitalization and emergency room discharge records received by DHSS include information on the anticipated pay source for the visit. This may not reflect the source of payment finally used.

Registered Users

Registered Users will find the following additional Optional Variables available for the Injury MICA.

Disposition

Each hospital discharge record contains information about the disposition of the patient at the time of discharge, specifically the place where they have been discharged or transferred (i.e., long-term care, deceased, etc.)

Admission Month

Injury MICA allows queries to be run by month, as well as by year. Some trends related to mechanism and discharge patterns are cyclical. For example, drownings increase during summer months, detail that would be lost if a user looked only at annual rates of drowning.