Infections in ICD10

Which date to use for infections in Acquired Diagnosis / Complication

The date we want to use is the date in which the infection first appeared clinically. This can be a very difficult determination, and may include consideration of:
- Date on which the clinical signs or symptoms first appeared (e.g. fever, or dysuria, etc)
- Date on which the culture was sent --- but this can be misleading because a culture may not be sent until several days after the symptoms appear.
- Thus, as usual, you must use your clinical judgment to decide when the infection first showed up.

Probably the most common of these is urine and sputum.
How to code these depends on what the clinical team thinks is true:
- If they're not treating because they think it's NOT an infection and instead is colonization, then code it as one or the other of: Colonized with organism (not infected) and/or something like Urine tests, NOS, abnormal
- If on the other hand, they just failed (permanently, or temporarily) to treat what became apparent later to be a real infection, then code it as an infection.

	Are all acquired treated UTI's (post 48 hours from admission) to be coded with an iatrogenic code? Is Iatrogenic, infection, urinary catheter coded if patient has one? The answer to this should probably go to Iatrogenic, infection, urinary catheter. The answer to this likely applies to some or all codes in Category:Iatrogenic.

Antibiotic resistance is combined-coded, see Antibiotic Resistant Organism for more info.

See