Wednesday, October 05, 2005

HCUP - Procedure Classes

Procedure Classes is one in a family of databases and software tools developed as part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). The Procedure Classes provide users an easy way to categorize procedure codes into one of four broad categories: Minor Diagnostic, Minor Therapeutic, Major Diagnostic, and Major Therapeutic. Procedure codes for this tool are based on the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM), Fifth Edition.

The Procedure Classes are created to facilitate health services research on hospital procedures using administrative data. This classification system allows the researcher to readily determine if (a) a procedure is diagnostic or therapeutic, and (b) a procedure is minor or major in terms of invasiveness and/or resource use.

downloadable software