Medical ICD-11 is coming
The development of ICD-11 has dated back to 2007. Based on reports from some estimates, it will not be ready for use in the United States until 2023 or later.
Like its precursor (ICD-10), ICD-11 is an essential undertaking and it is one of the most generally used code set in the whole world.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) plan has been in place to develop a modern ICD in other to make it applicable for use “with electronic health applications and information systems.”
This innovation will enhance the value of ICD-11 most especially when it comes to issues related to patient care, population health, and additional clinical research. The legacy features of earlier versions of ICD including ICD-10 and other versions will largely be preserved, but fortunately, ICD-11 will possess some of the features that are present in computer-friendly terminologies examples of which include SNOMED CT.
There was a collaborative agreement in 2010 between the WHO and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO). Many organizations are working hand in hand to create a new version of ICD (ICD-11) that will differ significantly from prior versions of ICD. It will incorporate features and content from SNOMED CT.
The WHO’s ICD coding has been adopted all over the world for health diagnoses to ensure that each country is in line with the latest research and medical knowledge.
The World Health Organization also uses it to track diseases in order to focus on resources as needed. The American version, known as ICD-10-CM (for “Clinical Modification”), is used for diagnostic coding by healthcare providers in the United States.
There are so many reasons associated with the delays of the latest update that has focused on a huge increase in the number of new codes, up to 68,000 out of 13,000 in ICD-9.
As a result of this increase, the numbering system was replaced by alphanumeric codes, which is important and a major concern to the Center for Disease Control, the federal agency responsible for managing the implementation of the update.
At that time, there was a discussion on skipping ICD-10 and moving directly to ICD-11, whose first release was scheduled for 2011.
However, the date of this publication has already been shifted to 2012, then 2015 and 2017. It has recently been announced that the release date for ICD-11 will now be 2018.
