Friday, 11 December 2009

Errors of the past

Diagnostic coding has it's place but if you are forced to label everyone who comes through the door there are going to be tricky times. Most patients of primary care (family medicine) do not have a clear diagnosis. Or don't have one... yet.
I went through a phase many years ago of coding (with the nearest most relevant code) those people I could find nothing wrong with as "Fit".
Waking in a cold sweat a few years later as my subconscious reviewed this process in a less than timely way, I realized that a "fit" is of course a "seizure, perhaps due to epilepsy.
So for those inconvenienced by my coding on their medical records say during application for an HGV licence or trying to get into the army, well, as we used to say at school:
Soz!