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Intervention

What is an intervention?

General definition

Interventions are:

Interventions are usually intended to treat a condition, as opposed to investigations, which are usually aimed at diagnosing a condition.

Patient administration and movement

Patient administration and management events are interventions. Stock phrases include:

Therapeutic acts

Therapeutic acts that do not involve drugs are considered to be interventions.

Interventions as verbs

Interventions may often be expressed in verbal form. For example,

Such interventions will be annotated. In the example, "excised" will be annotated as an intervention.

Patient self-treatment

Some interventions are patient self-treatments, such as exercise.

Advice given to patients

Advice given to a patient may also be considered an intervention.

Operations and sub-procedures

Complex descriptions of interventions, such as operation notes, may mention sub-parts of a procedure. These will be annotated.

What is not an intervention?

Seeing a patient

The verb "see" can sometimes stand in for some unspecified intervention on patient and clinician. The verb "see" will not be annotated as an intervention.

Care and treatment

General statements about care and treatment, as opposed to specific acts and events, will not be annotated as interventions

Section and paragraph headings

General statements of intervention in section and paragraph headings will not be annotated.

Changes to drugs

Starting and stopping of drug treatments will not be annotated as interventions.

Interventions modified by other words

Don't forget to use the dictionary test when considering interventions. Some interventions may be referred to by complex phrases, with additional words being added to the actual intervention to describe it further.