Registration of coding schemes used in health care communications

Registration of coding schemes used in health care communications WHO has agreed to act as a Registration Authority in support of the European Prestandard ENV 1068 for coding schemes used in health care information interchange. ENV 1068 has been prepared under the direction of the European Committee for Standard­ization and has been written in conformity with Inter­national Organization for Standardization/Internation­al Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) direct­ives. It is foreseen that this prestandard will eventu­ally receive worldwide approval as an ISO/ IEC standard and it is proposed that organizations within Europe as well as those elsewhere submit health care coding schemes for registration in accor­dance with ENV 1068. Copies of ENV 1068 can be obtained from national standards bodies in Europe. The WHO Division of Information System Manage­ment (ISM), which is responsible for the Registration Authority, does not produce coding schemes and is therefore able to act in a neutral capacity. Many coding schemes, i.e., systems for classify­ing entities (such as diseases, symptoms or proce­dures) using a set of identifiers, are already in use, e.g., those produced within the pharmaceuticalindustry. The ENV 1068 health care coding schemedesignator (HCD) is a six-character identifier issuedfor registration of each coding scheme or variantthereof. An example of a coding scheme is the Inter­national Classification of Diseases, 10th revision(ICD-10). The ICD-10 coding scheme provides aunique identifier for each disease or related healthproblem. The following are other areas where regis­tered coding schemes could be introduced: drugs andappliances; operative procedures; clinical special­ities; professional roles (doctor, nurse, physiothera­pist, etc.); and identification of health care profes­sionals or organizations.A unique HCD enables code values to be used unambiguously in communications between two in­formation systems. Registration of a coding scheme provides a central reference point for information about coding schemes used in medical informatics, enabling relevant information about a registered cod­ing scheme to be obtained by users and system developers. The information available includes the organization responsible for a coding scheme, the structure of code values, and domains covered by the schemes. Bodies responsible for producing and maintain­ing coding schemes are termed Issuing Organizations and are responsible for making the initial request for registration. Sponsoring Authorities, usually the national standards body or a ministry, take respon­sibility for accepting and checking requests for regis­tration from issuing organizations. WHO, as the Registration Authority, will process at the interna­tional level the requests forwarded by the Sponsoring Authorities and will be responsible for allocating the coding scheme designator, maintaining the register, and providing information about coding scheme registrations upon request. WHO Bulletin OMS. Vol 731995 Producers of coding schemes are invited to sub­mit applications to register them under ENV 1068 by contacting their national Sponsoring Authority (see below) or national standards body to obtain registra­tion forms. In case of difficulties the Registration Authority may be contacted at the following address to obtain the required form, which must be approved by the appropriate Sponsoring Authority in any case: Registration Authority, ENV 1068, Division of ISM, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Swit­zerland. The fee for a new registration of a coding scheme is 750 European Currency Units (ECU) ( 1 ECU = US$ 1.31) and for modifying an existing registered coding scheme, 500 ECU. When the appli­cation is approved by the Sponsoring Authority, the registration fee must be paid to RAMIT, c/o Medical Informatics Department, 5K3 University Hospital Ghent, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. In the near future a subscription service will be offered that will provide periodic dissemination of informa­tion from the coding scheme registration database. List of sponsoring authorities • Mr C. Decoster, General Director, Ministry ofPublic Health, Cité administrative de l'Etat, QuartierVésale - V. 550 - 5ème, B-1010 Brussels, Belgium.Tel.+ 32 2 210.48.12/13 - Fax+ 32 2 210.47.71 • Ms R. Tervo-Pellikka, STAKES, National Researchand Development, Centre for Welfare and Health,Medical Informatics, Box 220, 00531 Helsinki,Finland.Tel.+ 358 0 3967 2103 - Fax+ 358 0 3967 2424 • Mme M.-C. Franon, Service "Technologies del'Information et Applications", Association Françai­se de Normalisation, 92049 Paris la Défense Cedex,France.Tel.+ 33 1 42 91 55 55 - Fax+ 33 1 42 91 56 56 • Mr W.B. Burns, NSAI, General Quality StandardsDepartment, National Standards Authority of Ireland,Eolas, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland.Tel.+ 353 18370101 - Fax+ 353 8 1369821 • Mrs D. Luzi, ISRDS - CNR, Via C. De Lollis 12,00183 Rome, ltaly.Tel. + 39 6 4452351 - Fax + 39 6 4463836 • Dr W.M. Hirs, WCC Secretary, WHO Collaborat­ing Centre for ICIDH, P.O. Box 7100, 2701 AC Zoe­termeer, Netherlands.Tel.+ 31 79 687311 - Fax+ 31 79 621487 • KITH, Med. Tekn. Senter, N-7005 Trondheim,Norway. WHO Bulletin OMS. Vol 731995 WHO News and actlvlties Tel.+ 47 73 59 86 00 - Fax+ 47 73 86 11 • Ms B. Kiillstrom, Spri, P.O. Box 70487, S-107 26Stockholm, Sweden.Tel. + 46 8 702 46 00 - Fax + 46 8 702 47 99 • Mrs P. Village, IST/35 Secretariat, NHS Informa­tion Management Centre, 15 Frederick Road, Edg­baston, Birmingham B15 IJD, England.Tél.+ 44 21 625 1992 - Fax+ 44 21 625 1999 • Professor G. de Moor, University Hospital ofGhent, Department of Medical Informatics 5K3, DePintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.Tel. + 32 9 240 3436 - Fax + 32 9 2403439 . 807