Each healthcare visit was accompanied by the date (and when applicable discharge date), the centre accessed and medical department, therapeutic procedures undertaken and established diagnoses according to the International Classification of Diseases Version 10 (ICD-10) coding system.
Major cardiovascular risk factors were determined by reviewing diagnostic fields in computerized hospital discharge abstracts from April 1 , 1988to the index hospitalization date using all primary and secondary ICD-9 and ICD-10 (where applicable) discharge codes.
All patient participants (and their relative where applicable) discharged from either ICU on a particular day (a cluster) were allocated to one of the three study groups (figure 1).
Immediately after recruitment, patient participants in all clusters were given an identical looking folder containing a covering letter, study information and, where applicable, written discharge information (either UCCDIP or the ICUsteps booklet).
This explanation was not applicable for the discharge letters.
d) Outcomes data sheet – completed by medical staff and records date on death of patient (if applicable), date of discharge, date of transfer to another hospital/home, use of ambulance for transfer etc. e) Events Diary -to be completed and kept by every participant to document all services used from discharge to follow-up as an aide memoire to help them to answer questions at 6 months.
We believe that these findings can be applicable to many other discharge stations around the globe.
If applicable, admission time and discharge location for the nursing home in the intervention group were provided as well as date and cause of death.
Other data collected included demographic data, including nationality, age, and gender; diagnosis; length of stay; duration of ventilatory support, if applicable; and disposition at discharge.
Third, it should be emphasized that our case definition, which relies on inpatient ICD diagnosis codes from Tennessee Medicaid medical claims data that may be encoded days or weeks following discharge, is applicable to retrospective studies that use automated databases as a data source.
Information gathered on this survey will be: the date and reason of discharge (if applicable), number of physiotherapy sessions scheduled, number of physiotherapy sessions attended, exercises prescribed and repetitions completed, any other physiotherapy treatment administered, and, for the treatment group only, the dates, number of sets and duration of the joint mobilisation treatment.
