Publication:

Quality of Coding of Diseases and Medical Procedures at Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi County, Kenya

Objective: To find out the quality of coding of diseases and medical procedures at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Nairobi, Kenya. Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study. Setting: Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. Subjects: One hundred eighty four respondents. Results: The study set to determine the quality of coding of diseases and medical procedures at KNH. A sample of 184 files was studied. The files were from all specialties in the hospital. 150 (82%) files were from patients who were discharged from the hospital and 34(18% files were from deceased. The disease coding was performed accurately in 89 % of the files. Most of the miscoding arose as aresult of misintepretation of the medical abbreviations. The disease reporting wa acuurate in 91% of the cases. Non of the coders had training contrary to the World Health Organizatios (WHO) recommendations. Conclusion The KNH has the responsibility to ensure that all the coders are trained as per WHO guidelines. The disease coding and reporting should be accurate for planning and for the resources allocation purposes. This should be done in all healthcare institutions as coding transforms medical diagnosis and procedures into universal medical code diagnosis