ICD-11 2018 version: Part 1 – The Launch

The 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) is here!

ICD-11 was launched Monday, 18. June 2018 from Geneva, Switzerland at 11:45 Europe Summer Time (GMT+02:00), i.e. from 5:45pm Malaysia Time.

I attended the webinar for this launch via WebEx. The webinar was about three (3) hours long.

The webinar started with a video message from Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Director General, WHO. This opening video was followed by several  key presenters who presented the following topics:

1. Dr Hiroyuki Suenaga , Vice President Japan Hospital Association who spoke on ICD-11 Resource allocation and clinical documentation;

2. ICD-11 Modern use of health information by Dr Christopher G. Chute, who is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Informatics, Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, Chief Research Information Officer, Johns Hopkins Medicine,  and also the Deputy Director, Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. Johns Hopkins University;

3. ICD-11 – what is new was presented by Dr Robert Jakob, Team Leader Classifications, Terminologies and Standards;

4. Dr Lale Say, Coordinator Adolescents and at-Risk Populations who briefed on ICD-11 Maternal and sexual health with special emphasis on gender issues;

5. Dr Shekhar Saxena, Director Mental Health and Substance Abuse elaborated on gaming disorders in ICD-11 and Mental health;

6. Dr Wansa Paoin, Head of CC, Thailand spoke on implementing ICD in a country;

7. implementation package presentation was given by a WHO representative; and

8. ICD-11 – Global action plan for implementation and regional focal points for health information by the various WHO Regional Offices representatives

All of the above was followed-up by a Question & Answer Period that lasted about 30 minutes, from members of the floor as well as from online attendees.

Before closure, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Deputy Director General for Programmes WHO did the closing remarks, followed by Dr John Grove, Director, IER – WHO doing the closure.

This new release is to allow Member States to prepare for implementation, including translating ICD into their national languages. Member States will start reporting using ICD-11 on 1 January 2022 i.e. about 3 years and 6 months from now, after due endorsement from the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019.

The reader can access the ICD-11 website for more details at https://icd.who.int/. A screenshot of the ICD-11 homepage is displayed below.

More details about what is ICD-11, how ICD-11 works, and what’s new in ICD-11 among other topics will be posted shortly here.