We compared syndromic categorization of chief complaint and discharge diagnosis for 3,919 emergency department visits to two hospitals in the U.S. National Capitol Region. Agreement between chief complaint and discharge diagnosis was good overall (kappa=0.639), but neurologic and sepsis syndromes had markedly lower agreement than other syndromes (kappa statistics 0.085 and 0.105, respectively).

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a hereditary disorder that can cause a huge impact to the sufferer, his family and surrounding living environment but is still often diagnosed late. We believe that a better understanding of the disease through analysis of the chief complaints and early signs of CAH will aid early diagnosis. Analysis of chief complaints and early signs of CAH from paediat...

BACKGROUND It remains an urgent need for early recognition of disease severity, treatment option and outcome of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). The chief complaint may be quickly obtained in clinic and is one of the candidates for early predictors. However, studies on the chief complaint are still lacking in GBS. The aim of the study is to describe the components of chief complaints of GBS patie...

We conducted a retrospective study to ascertain the potential of free-text chief complaints collected in pediatric emergency departments to serve as surveillance data for early detection of outbreaks. detection from such data and both suffered from either methodological limitations or very small sample size. 4,5 The present study attempts to measure performance characteristics of a biosurveilla...

INTRODUCTION We hypothesized that a geriatric chief complaint-based didactic curriculum would improve resident documentation of elderly patient care in the emergency department (ED). METHODS A geriatric chief complaint curriculum addressing the 3 most common chief complaints-abdominal pain, weakness, and falls-was developed and presented. A pre- and postcurriculum implementation chart review ...

BACKGROUND In 2004, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) contracted with the Regenstrief Institute to build an information exchange infrastructure to support the collection of surveillance data. This pilot program involves implementation of electronic reporting in 46 of the state’s 114 emergency departments. Chief complaint data are collected and analyzed to identify clusters of diseas...