Difference between pastHistory and diagnosis

[ireneangelucci]

What is the difference between an annotation from the pastHistory table and one from the Diagnosis table? Initially I thought that annotations for pastHistory referred only to diagnosis that took place before the ICU admission, but this seems unlikely as the pasthistoryoffset column has mostly positive values. For example, is there a difference between cardiovascular|vascular disorders|hypertension in diagnosis table and hypertension requiring treatment in the pastHistory table? Can someone please clarify on this? Thank you.

[jraffa]

I believe the offsets in pasthistory are when the data was entered into eICU, and not when the diagnosis was made.

I would say in general, pasthistory is likely more used for chronic conditions and comorbidities (but also any pre-ICU Dx), and diagnosis for both chronic and acute. Each hospital may document slightly differently, so you may find this only applies to a subset of hospitals.

It's difficult to draw any definitive conclusions without some sort of case-specific validation. For instance, acute vs chronic HTN can be somewhat discriminated by looking at ICU BPs. Also see the admissiondrug and meds tables.

[ireneangelucci]

Thank you! Are offsets in diagnosis to be interpreted as the ones in pastHistory, i.e. do they only represent when the data was entered and not when the diagnosis was made?