medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

, an external cause is a reason for the existence of a

medical condition A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medica ...

which can be associated with a specific object or acute process that was caused by something outside the body. Such causes are classified as " E codes" in ICD 9. External Cause of Injury Codes (E codes) are ICD-9-CM codes or ICD-10 codes that are used to define the mechanism of

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

injury An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, or ...

, along with the place of occurrence of the event

E codes are assigned on

death certificate A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...

s based on the

manner of death In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic. Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distin ...

. ICD-10 codes in the range V01–X59 refer to unintentional injuries. Codes in the range X60–X84 refer to intentional

self-harm Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilati ...

. Codes in the range Y85–Y09 refer to

assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in cri ...

, and codes in the range Y10–Y34 refer to events of undetermined intent. E codes are well-collected on death certificate data, but less so on

hospital discharge Inpatient care is the care of patients whose condition requires admission to a hospital. Progress in modern medicine and the advent of comprehensive out-patient clinics ensure that patients are only admitted to a hospital when they are extremel ...

data. Numerous initiatives have increased the percentage of records coded (CDC, MMWR March 28, 2008 / Vol. 57 / No. RR-1).

References

Medical diagnosis {{med-diagnostic-stub