Epidemiological surveillance relying solely on ICD codes underestimates the prevalence of acute CHF by approximately one third.
May bias epidemiological estimates of acute CHF; leaves open validation of clinical-augmented ascertainment methods.
Reliance on ICD codes results in the exclusion of one third of the patients with clinical evidence of acute CHF. This underenumeration is compounded by the typical reliance on the first listed diagnosis. Congestive heart failure may be a greater public health problem than currently recognized. The allocation of resources for relevant surveillance, research, medical care, and preventive efforts should be reevaluated.
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Goff et al. (2000) studied this question.
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