The
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (most commonly known by the abbreviation
ICD) provides codes to classify
diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or disease. Every health condition can be assigned to a unique category and given a code, up to six characters long. Such categories can include a set of similar diseases.
The International Classification of Diseases is published by the World Health Organization and used worldwide for morbidity and mortality statistics, reimbursement systems and automated decision support in medicine. This system is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of these statistics. The ICD is a core classification of the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC).
The ICD is revised periodically and is currently in its tenth edition. The ICD-10, as it is therefore known, was developed in 1992 to track mortality statistics. ICD-11 is planned for 2015 [1] and will be revised using Web 2.0 principles.[2] Annual minor updates and three-yearly major updates are published by the WHO. The ICD is part of a "family" of guides that can be used to complement each other, including also the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health which focuses on the domains of functioning (disability) associated with health conditions, from both medical and social perspectives.
In 1893, a French physician, Jacques Bertillon, introduced the Bertillon Classification of Causes of Death at the International Statistical Institute in Chicago. A number of countries adopted Dr. Bertillon’s system, and in 1898, the American Public Health Association (APHA) recommended that the registrars of Canada, Mexico, and the United States also adopt it. The APHA also recommended revising the system every ten years to ensure the system remained current with medical practice advances. As a result, the first international conference to revise the International Classification of Causes of Death convened in 1900; with revisions occurring every ten years thereafter. At that time the classification system was contained in one book, which included an Alphabetic Index as well as a Tabular List. The book was small compared with current coding texts.
