Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Emergency Department Visits due to Unintentional Carbon Monoxide Poisoning by Age, New Jersey, 2023
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Why Is This Important?
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless and odorless poisonous gas produced by the incomplete burning of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. Unintentional CO exposure to people most frequently occurs due to improper ventilation, and or inhalation of exhaust fumes from vehicles, generators, gas furnaces or heaters. CO poisoning can also occur in combination with smoke inhalation and burns during residential fires.
While most CO poisoning can be prevented, every year more than 500 Americans die as a result of exposure to this toxic gas. Thousands of Americans annually need to get medical care for non-fatal CO poisonings. Symptoms of CO exposure may include: headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness and confusion. At high levels, CO poisoning causes loss of consciousness and death. Survivors of severe poisoning may suffer long-term neurological problems. CO poisoning can be prevented by the installation of CO detectors/alarms and the proper maintenance of heating systems.
Definition
Annual number or rate of Emergency Department visits for unintentional carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning for New Jersey residents by county, and cause/intent (fire, non-fire or unknown). ICD-9 discharge diagnoses codes used through September 2015 were: E890.0-E899.9 for fire-related poisoning; E800-E848.0, E850-E869.9, E880-E888.9, E900-E928.9 for non-fire poisoning; and E986 for unknown. Beginning October 2015 onward, ICD-10 code T58 was used (with exclusions for intentional and additional coding for fire and non-fire subcategories).
Data Source
Hospital Discharge Data Collection System (NJDDCS), Health Care Quality and Assessment, New Jersey Department of Health(https://nj.gov/health/healthcarequality/health-care-professionals/njddcs/)
How the Measure is Calculated
Numerator:
Number of emergency department visits due to unintentional CO poisoningDenominator:
Estimated number of persons in the population
Data Issues
Missing data in 2022: Three hospitals in Camden and Gloucester Counties submitted their fourth quarter data after the file closure deadline so their data are missing from the 2022 inpatient and emergency department datasets.Overall Discharge Volume in 2020: Hospital claim volume for the 2020 calendar year was markedly lower (19.9%) than for 2019, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This reduction was seen in both inpatient discharges (8.2% lower claim volume than 2019) and emergency department visits (27.3% lower claim volume than 2019). This was likely the result of hospital care being redirected to address the care for COVID-19 patients while elective surgeries and other outpatient care services were being postponed.
Caveats specific to 2017 data: NJDOH changed its vendor for hospitalization data collection in 2017 resulting in data loss at some facilities during the transition period. Additionally, The old vendor experienced a global malware incident in June 2017 that possibly resulted in the loss of some data in the system queue at that time.
ICD Coding between 2015 and 2016: The nationwide switch from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM hospital diagnosis coding on October 1, 2015 disrupted trends for some diseases and conditions. Interpret trend data in this report with caution. Also note that New Jersey's data for October through December, 2015 was recoded to ICD-9-CM so that entire year of data was coded the same way.
Related Health Objectives and Indicators
Environmental Public Health Tracking Indicator CMP-38
Description: Emergency department visits for carbon monoxide poisoninghttps://ephtracking.cdc.gov/indicatorPages?selectedContentAreaAbbreviation=2&selectedIndicatorId=38