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Identification and Validation of a Diagnosis of Diverticulitis in the Outpatient Setting

Funding:

The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons

Principal Investigator:

Charles Heise, MD

Project Summary:

Diverticular disease is a common entity in Western culture, with nearly two-thirds of the US population over age 80 affected. Despite the burden in which complications of this disease pose in regards to morbidity, mortality, and health-care costs, practitioners are faced with a severe knowledge gap regarding its natural course. This is especially true in the outpatient setting with questions regarding patterns of recurrence and optimal timing of surgical intervention. Unfortunately, a rigorous investigation into the basic epidemiology of diverticulitis is currently limited by the inability to reliably identify patients with diverticulitis in the outpatient setting for characterization and study. At this time, validated identification algorithms for diverticulitis and its associated complications and procedures are not available in the literature. Therefore, we propose an initial study to validate strategies to accurately identify outpatients with diverticulitis, using electronic medical record (EMR) data, with comparison made against gold standard diagnostic criteria retrieved through manual medical chart abstraction.

Once established, we will use our validated definition to identify the episodes as sentinel or recurrent, define a cohort of patients with a history of diverticulitis, and further validate the linkage of this cohort to Medicare claims data. While this study emphasizes methodology rather than clinical outcomes, it provides an essential foundation for future investigations into the patterns of presentation and recurrence seen among outpatients, thus allowing the development of evidence-based practice parameters for the management of outpatients with diverticulitis. The proposed study sets the stage for future investigation as we seek a better standard of care in order to impact medical outcomes, quality of life, and the economics of the health care system as a whole.

 

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First published: 07/15/02 Last updated: 11/23/09 webmaster@surgery.wisc.edu
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