Evidence that it's important to label your remarks

Recently, Professor Costa had me finding some information in an additional comments field in the disease data. These fields are like the Remarks fields in the VCC screens. Just as you are supposed to label your notes in the remarks with the field the data refer to, we did the same thing in disease data collection. If the information is labeled correctly, you know that what you're reading is the duration of the contributory cause of death and not something else.

Because the information in the general comments was tagged with the the appropriate question from the disease screens, I was able to more quickly and accurately find the information requested. Without those labels, I would have had some confusion about whether some of the comments answered Professor Costa's question.

So, it's important to label anything you type in remarks. It will prove useful later.

Operations listed on death certificates

Sometimes operations are listed on death certificates without being the cause of death. Enter operations listed on the death certificate in the remarks. Please use the following format.

OPERATION: type of operation

For example

OPERATION: RESECTION OF CECUM