Validation of an ICD code for accurately identifying emergency department patients who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Aim International classification of disease (ICD-9) code 427.5 (cardiac arrest) is utilized to identify cohorts of patients who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), though the use of ICD codes for this purpose has never been formally validated. We sought to validate the utility of ICD-9 code 427.5 by identifying patients admitted from the emergency department (ED) after OHCA. Methods Adult visits to a single ED between January 2007 and...