Table 1.
Emergency department visits identified by heat syndrome case definition keywords, by keyword and the presence of a heat-related ICD-9-CM code, for all civilian hospital-affiliated emergency departments in North Carolina, January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2014a
| Records, No. (%) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Transact-SQL Keywordb | Totalc | Presence of ICD-9-CM Coded |
| Current keywordse | ||
| heat exhaust* &! “explod*” | 1028 (33.8) | 503 (48.9) |
| overheat* | “over heat*” | 646 (21.3) | 181 (28.0) |
| “to hot” | “too hot” | 594 (19.6) | 76 (12.8) |
| heatstroke | “heat stroke” | 302 (9.9) | 110 (36.4) |
| “heat cramp*” | 202 (6.7) | 134 (66.3) |
| “heat related” | 193 (6.4) | 93 (48.2) |
| “hypertherm*” | 58 (1.9) | 14 (24.1) |
| “heat problem*” | 7 (0.2) | 3 (42.9) |
| heat sick* | 3 (0.1) | 0 (0.0) |
| sunstroke | “sun stroke” | 3 (0.1) | 1 (33.3) |
| “heat weak*” | 1 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) |
| Total | 3037 (100.0) | 1115 (36.7) |
| Additional keywordse | ||
| heat ex* &! “explod*” | 646 (66.7) | 334 (51.7) |
| “sun poison*” | 184 (19.0) | 2 (1.1) |
| “hot car” | 34 (3.5) | 7 (20.6) |
| “hot sun” | 26 (2.7) | 4 (15.4) |
| “heat injury” | 25 (2.6) | 12 (48.0) |
| “sun str*” | sunstr* | 14 (1.4) | 0 (0.0) |
| “heat str*” | heatstr* | 12 (1.2) | 4 (33.3) |
| “due to heat” | 12 (1.2) | 1 (8.3) |
| “heat ill*” | 6 (0.6) | 2 (33.3) |
| “heat emerg*” | 6 (0.6) | 3 (50.0) |
| “heat syn*” | 3 (0.3) | 2 (66.7) |
| “heat realted” | 1 (0.1) | 0 (0.0) |
| “heat prostration” | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) |
| Total | 969 (100.0) | 371 (38.3) |
Abbreviation: ICD-9-CM, International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification.
aData source: unpublished data, North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool (NC DETECT).
bIf a phrase is enclosed in quotes, the words had to be separated by a single space or a hyphen to be included.
cPercentages may not total to 100 because of rounding.
dHeat-related ICD-9-CM codes included 992, 992.0-992.9, E900, E900.0, E900.1, and E900.9.7
e Current refers to keywords included in the heat syndrome case definition at the time of the study. Additional refers to keywords evaluated during the process of refining the heat syndrome definition. These keywords were not included in the current heat syndrome definition. SQL symbols refer to the following: * = wildcard, which means that any alphanumeric characters can follow (eg, “heat cramp*” will pick up “heat cramp” or “heat cramps”); &! = and not.