Using Syndromic Emergency Department Data to Augment Oral Health Surveillance

Introduction NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently reoriented its oral health care strategy to focus on health promotion and expanded surveillance. One surveillance challenge is the lack of timely OHV data; few dental providers are in our electronic health record project, and statewide utilization data are subject to delays. Prior research has examined OHV using ICD-9-CM from ED records, and has suggested that diagnostic specificity may be limited by ED providers’ lack of training in dental diagnoses (1-3). We considered our existing ED syndromic system as a complement to periodic population-based surveys. This system captures approximately 95% of all ED visits citywide; 98% of records have a completed chief complaint text field whereas only 52% contain an ICD-9-CM diagnosis.