TEHRAN – The World Health Organization (WHO) has admitted the Persian Medicine National Coding for International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

Hosted by the Ministry of Traditional Medicine of India in New Delhi, ICD-11 traditional medicine module 2 was launched on January 10 in the presence of senior officials of the World Health Organization and representatives of countries including Iran, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia, Mauritius, Indonesia, England, Philippines, and South Africa.

“As one of the participants, Iran has played an active role in compiling traditional medicine module 2. The country has also held several meetings with WHO’s experts and other participating countries,” IRNA quoted Nafiseh Hosseini-Yekta, the director of the health ministry’s Persian medicine office, as saying.

Stating that this project started in 2020, she went on to say, “Despite all opposition and many problems, after 4 years of bilateral and multilateral negotiations, as well as employing effective scientific diplomacy in expert and decision-making meetings, traditional Persian medicine codes in Module 2 of International Classification of ICD 11 traditional medicine were accepted, which is a great achievement in the global expansion of Iranian medicine, Hossini-Yekta added.

Meanwhile, Arman Zargaran, the advisor to the health ministry’s traditional medicine office, stated that once ICD11 is in effect, all Iranian medical disease codes in hospitals and medical centers can be used.

ICD

ICD serves a broad range of uses globally and provides critical knowledge on the extent, causes, and consequences of human disease and death worldwide via data that is reported and coded with the ICD.

Clinical terms coded with ICD are the main basis for health recording and statistics on disease in primary, secondary, and tertiary care, as well as on cause of death certificates.

These data and statistics support payment systems, service planning, administration of quality and safety, and health services research. Diagnostic guidance linked to categories of ICD also standardizes data collection and enables large-scale research.

ICD provides a common language that allows health professionals to share standardized information across the world. The eleventh revision contains around 17,000 unique codes, and more than 120,000 codable terms and is now entirely digital.

All Member States are encouraged to follow their commitment to move on to ICD-11 documented with their approval of ICD-11 at the 72nd meeting of the World Health Assembly in 2019, and use the most current version of ICD for recording and reporting mortality and morbidity statistics both nationally and internationally.

Current implemented uses of ICD-11 include causes of death, primary care, cancer registration, patient safety, dermatology, pain documentation, allergology, reimbursement, clinical documentation, data dictionaries for WHO guidelines, digital documentation of COVID-19 vaccination status and test results, and more.

As a classification and terminology, ICD-11 allows the systematic recording, analysis, interpretation, and comparison of mortality and morbidity data collected in different countries or regions and at different times.

It also ensures semantic interoperability and reusability of recorded data for the different use cases beyond mere health statistics, including decision support, resource allocation, reimbursement, guidelines, and more.

MT/MG