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Identify relevant CCI codes for interventions of interest

cci_search.Rd

The Canadian Classification of Health Interventions (CCI) codes provide a detailed classification of all inpatient interventions in Canada, with more than 17,000 unique, alphanumeric codes.

cci_search() faciliates the process of indentifying relevant CCI codes for interventions of interest. For example, researchers may want to identify all CCI codes related to diagnostic imaging performed on a specific body region. The function enables this by breaking down all existing CCI codes into their underlying components (see hierarchical coding structure here, and providing a step-by-step filtering approach allowing researchers to identify CCI codes of interest.

Usage

cci_search(dbcon)

Arguments

dbcon

(DBIConnection)
A DBI database connection to any GEMINI database. The function will query the lookup_cci table to identify all unique CCI codes, which will then be filtered for the relevant codes based on the step-by-step search criteria provided by the user via the terminal.

Value

data.table This function returns a table containing the filtered CCI codes matching the user's search criteria. For each row in the output table, the following variables are returned:

  • intervention_code: CCI code matching the search criteria

  • CCI_description: description of the CCI code

Details

CCI codes contain 5-10 alphanumeric characters defining the following features:

  1. Section (1 character): Broad realm of interventions (e.g., 1 = "physical/physiological therapeutic interventions")

  2. Group (2 characters): Target region or area of focus. In Sections 1-3, this refers to anatomy site (e.g., SC = "spinal vertebrae") while in others, it refers to stage of pregnancy (Section 5), mental/sensory function (Section 6), intervention type (Section 7), or target disease/organism (Section 8)

  3. Intervention (2 characters): Procedure/intervention types within a given Section (e.g., 75 = "fusion")

  4. Qualifier 1 (2 characters): Optional details defining how (or why) the intervention was performed. In Sections 3/4/7, Qualifier 1 is all that is required to complete the CCI code. In other Sections (e.g., 1), it represents only a part of the qualifier - the approach and technique portion (e.g., LL = "using open anterior approach").

  5. Qualifier 2 (2 characters): Optional details, such as the tools, agents or modalities used (e.g., KD = "fixation device")

  6. Qualifier 3 (1 character): Optional details defining the type of tissue (e.g., A = "autograft") or group/strain of an organism/antigen used during the intervention.

The cci_search() function provides a step-by-step search allowing users to extract a subset of CCI codes matching the Section, Group(s) Intervention(s), and/or Qualifier(s) that are of interest for a particular study.

At each step, the user is shown available categories and their corresponding descriptions, which can be searched and sorted in the viewer pane. The user is then prompted to provide the entries they want to include via the terminal. In some cases, broader drop-down menus are shown allowing users to select multiple categories at once (e.g., all interventions targeting the nervous system).

Warning

This function can only search CCI codes that exist in the lookup_cci table. Some older, deprecated CCI codes may not be present in that table, and hence, can't be identified using cci_search(). We therefore recommend using this function as a starting point only, and complement it with an additional search (e.g., using regex) to make sure all relevant codes have been identified.

Additionally, please note that CCI codes are structured in a nested hierarchy, where the specific Groups, Interventions, and Qualifiers vary across Sections (1st digit of CCI codes). The function therefore only allows users to select a single Section during the first step of the filtering process. If users want to search codes across different Sections, they need to run this function multiple times - once per Section.

References

https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/guide-for-users-of-cci-manual-en.pdf https://www.cihi.ca/en/cci-coding-structure

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
drv <- dbDriver("PostgreSQL")
dbcon <- DBI::dbConnect(drv,
  dbname = "db",
  host = "domain_name.ca",
  port = 1234,
  user = getPass("Enter user:"),
  password = getPass("password")
)
cci_filtered <- cci_search(dbcon)
} # }