The Charlson Comorbidity Index - Text Mining Techniques for Healthcare Provider Quality Determination - page 172

Figure 9. Probability density for total charges for Charlson index of 3-12

Figure 10. Probability density for total charges for Charlson index of 13

One way of eliminating these discrepancies is to define a cutpoint. Often that cutpoint is defined at
index 2 or 3, so that all patients with an index of 2 or less are given a code of 0; all others are given a code
of 1. We use the code to define a cutpoint at 2. Table 13 gives the resulting relationship to mortality.

Table 13. Mortality by Charlson code with a cutpoint at 2

Table of charlsoncode by DIED
charlsoncode DIED Total

Frequency
Row Pct
Col Pct

0 1

0 7061154

98.44
90.24

112018
1.56
67.02

7173172

1 763703

93.27
9.76

55132
6.73
32.98

818835

Total 7824857 167150 7992007