ICD-11 use case
ICD-11 use cases
Uses of the ICD are diverse and widespread and much of what is known about the extent, causes and consequences of human disease worldwide relies on use of data classified according to ICD. See below just a few examples:
1) Certification and reporting of Causes of Death
Information on what people die of is recorded on standard forms, analyzed and reported following ICD standards. The information reliably provides a long-term trend of the health of a population. It also can serve short-term monitoring of epidemiological information, like in an epidemic or pandemic.
2) Morbidity coding and reporting including Primary care
Accurate and precise information on what people fall sick from and are treated for is recorded and reported with ICD. This includes all levels of health from primary to secondary and tertiary care. This information further serves policy design, planning and monitoring of all aspects of the health of a population.
3) Casemix and Diagnosis-Related Grouping (DRG)
ICD-coded information is used for resource allocation or lumpsum payments of statistically equal groups.
4) Assessing and monitoring the safety, efficacy, and quality of care
Quality of care uses ICD-coded information to describe the situation of the patient, outcome of treatment and incidents or near-incidents including mechanisms and involved objects such as the failure of an infusion pump or the accidental wrong dosage of a medicament by the patient in line with the WHO recommendations for patient safety incident reporting and learning systems (page 12).
5) Cancer registries
Cancer registration provides detailed information over time on cancer patients. Information on the type of cancer, its location, spread and behavior is coded with ICD.
6) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
ICD-11 has combined the updated classification structure with what was formerly the index of ICD. Furthermore, it has systematically redesigned the additional information included in ICD-10 and several of its derivatives in addition to other WHO nomenclatures and terminologies. As a result, ICD-11 has a broad terminological basis that allows users to code clinical terms in records as well as in other documents, such as COVID-19 vaccine certificates. Due to its multilingual design and the controlled translation environment, it is a reliable tool for communication across settings, borders and languages.
7) Interoperability standards in WHO Digital Guidelines and for Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC)
Traditional medicine is an enduring and important area of health care in many countries. To better reflect this reality, ICD-11 includes a supplementary chapter for optional dual coding use, entitled ‘Traditional medicine conditions’. ICD-11 enables, for the first time, the counting of traditional medicine services and encounters; the measurement of their form, frequency, effectiveness, safety, quality, outcomes, and cost; comparison with mainstream medicine; and research, due to standardized terms and definitions nationally and internationally. This supplementary chapter is a subclassification for optional use. This chapter is not intended for mortality reporting. Coding should always include also a category from the chapters 1-24 of ICD.
8) Coding traditional medicine conditions
The ability to carry out tasks by oneself and participate in daily life are means by which to describe, in summary, the overall functioning of a person. It can also be used to track the situation in general or before and after treatment. ICD includes a set of functioning categories based on the WHO disability assessment scheme (WHODAS2) that allow users to calculate a functioning score.
9) Assessing functioning
Comparability of coded information in multiple languages and with common diagnostic approaches allows the pooling of information from different sites, both globally and locally, for research and trials. ICD provides all levels of detail required for complete clinical and research documentation across languages, borders and settings.
10) Researching and performing clinical trials and epidemiological studies
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a major threat to human health with significant global economic and security implications. ICD provides the details recommended by the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS). This enables the recording and reporting of the infection, the specific agent, and the level and type of resistance to specific drugs