April 9, 2021

If you have a patient that had a (closed) displaced mandible fx, this will code as an open fx and the question for antibiotic administration becomes valid. Are all displaced mandible fxs considered open – even though this one clearly states closed? I do see in the AIS manual that open/displaced/comminuted all fall into the same category. This causes a message that pops up “based on AIS codes, this record may meet open fx criteria”. I know we can validate this but then it does not populate the NTDS side appropriately when we have “does not meet criteria” marked. On TQIP side, we then get an inclusion criteria – level 2 error message – Element must not be NA as AIS codes provided meet the reporting criteria. We would then have to exclude this chart. What would you suggestion be to make this record work?

If you have an AIS code recorded that falls within the defined coding criteria for these fields, you will need to answer the antibiotic elements as if there is an open fracture present for both PTOS and the NTDB. This criteria is provided by the NTDB/TQIP, and we understand sometimes it is not perfect as some non-open fractures do get included simply based on how they are coded in AIS. PTSF can provide the current list of AIS codes that fall within the criteria.

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