KDHE’s KIC Website Offers New Data from Emergency Departments

Tool makes diagnoses and other statistics available online for first time

TOPEKA – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has added a new dataset to its online health data query tool, Kansas Information for Communities (KIC). Emergency department data from the state’s general hospitals is now available on the KIC page.

“Using KIC, individuals and policy makers will be able to see the diagnoses that bring almost 900,000 residents to emergency departments at Kansas hospitals,” said KDHE Acting Secretary and State Health Officer Lee A. Norman, M.D. “This information can provide an insight into the injuries and illnesses affecting Kansans, many of which are preventable.”

Using the KIC emergency department data, individuals will be able to produce statistics on the number of ED visits by county, race, ethnicity, sex and various diagnosis categories. The diagnosis codes are grouped using a clinical classification software developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The same categories are used in the hospital discharge or inpatient diagnoses that are reported in the KIC hospital discharge query tool.

KIC can produce counts, rates and age-adjusted hospital ED or inpatient rates. Other datasets contained in KIC include hospital discharge procedures, births, deaths, pregnancies, cancer and population.  Data used in KIC is deidentified with some small counts or unreliable rates suppressed. The KIC web site also hosts a variety of other statistics, data and resources. The URL is http://kic.kdheks.gov.