Board tasks FG, WHO on implementation of latest int’l disease classification in hospitals

The Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria (HRORBN) has called on the Federal Ministry of Health, World Health Organisation (WHO) and other stakeholders to support the successful implementation of the International Classification of Diseases Eleventh Edition (ICD-11) in all Nigerian hospitals and facilities.

Registrar of the board, Alhaji Babagana Mustapha, made the call yesterday in Abuja during a training workshop on International Classification of Diseases tenth edition (ICD-10) and introduction to International Classification of Diseases Eleventh Edition (ICD-11), organised by the board, in collaboration with the Association of Health Records and Information Management Practitioners of Nigeria (AHRIMPN).

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He said the current edition (ICD-11) is the latest in a series that was formalised in 1893 as the Bertillon classification or international list of causes of death, adding that the 11th version was adopted by the 72nd World Health Assembly in May, 2019 and member states are expected to start recording and report diseases entities using it on 1st January 2022.

He said, “It incorporated so many innovations different from the previous versions. The numbering system is now different, there are more chapters, and it is electronic based among other differences.

“Today, the document has been implemented all over the world, including some African countries.

“Therefore, Nigeria needs to adequately prepare resources in terms of hardware, software and human.”

He added that the workshop was part of the strategy to prepare human skills and workforce, particularly health records and information management practitioners for the ICD-11 implementation in the country.

Aliyu Agwai, Head, National Health Information Management, Federal Ministry of Health said the previous edition ICD-10 was made available in Nigeria in 1994, but till date is only currently in use in only a few secondary and tertiary facilities. He said work on ICD-11 was introduced in 2018 by WHO to prepare member states for it is implementation this year.

He said the time and amount necessary for the implementation of ICD-11 would largely depend on factors such as funding, political will and stakeholders’ engagement.

The national president of the Association of Health Records and Information Management Practitioners of Nigeria (AHRIMPN), Comrade Michael Luka Mallo, said clinical coding and classification processes transformed natural language descriptions in clinical text into coded data that could be subsequently used for clinical care, research and other purposes.