ICD-9 code reporting among patients from the Minnesota SARI surveillance program

The ICD-9 codes for acute respiratory illness (ARI) and pneumonia/influenza (P&I) are commonly used in ARI surveillance; however, few studies evaluate the accuracy of these codes or the importance of ICD-9 position. We reviewed ICD-9 codes reported among patients identified through severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance to compare medical record documentation with medical coding and evaluated ICD-9 codes assigned to patients with influenza detections.