Improving the identification of people with dementia in primary care: evaluation of the impact of primary care dementia coding guidance on identified prevalence.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Improving dementia care is a policy priority nationally and internationally; there is a 'diagnosis gap' with less than half of the cases of dementia ever diagnosed. The English Health Department's Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) encourages primary care recognition and recording of dementia. The codes for dementia are complex with the possibility of underidentification through miscoding. We developed guidance on coding of dementia; we report the impact of applying this to 'clean up' dementia coding and records at a practice level.

Design

The guidance had five elements: (1) identify Read Codes for dementia; (2) access QOF dementia register; (3) generate lists of patients who may have dementia; (4) compare search with QOF data and (5) review cases. In each practi

SUBMITTER: Russell P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3884610 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature