Under the auspices of the Vice Minister of Health for Planning and Development, Dr. Mohammad Khoshaim; and in the presence of the Assistant Deputy Minister of Health for Hospital Affairs, Dr. Aqeel Al-Ghamdi, the fourth course activities of the second phase for applying the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) (Australian Modification) to MOH employees were concluded today (Wednesday). It is noteworthy that this course was organized by the MOH Undersecretary of Planning and Health Economics and lasted for two weeks in Riyadh, where (21) trainees were involved.
This course comes as a part of the Ministry’s plan to apply the International Classification of Diseases for Surgical and Nonsurgical Procedures, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AMACHI / ACS), and to prepare for using the Classification in all medical records sections in the Ministry’s hospitals and primary health care centers in the Kingdom.
It is worth mentioning that this course is deemed to be as a starting point for a series of specialized courses and workshops aiming at training more than 200 medical records technicians of MOH employees in order to apply the standards issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) through the ICD-10-AM; which is essentially issued by the International Organization and includes only the classification of diseases. The Australian Modification includes codes of the Health Interventions; which are called: (Australian Coding for Health Interventions ACHI). Moreover, the participants are also trained on applying the Australian Coding Standards (ACS); which will be applied at the level of hospitals and healthcare centers with the aim of benchmarking the health information locally (Local Benchmarking) and improving the quality of health services.
Furthermore, the course was targeted to participants who already have knowledge of medical terminologies and coding due to their previous studies in the Medical Records Management Diploma, Health Information Systems, Medical Secretarial, Health Information Management, and Medical Coding in the Kingdom and Australia. In the meantime, preparations for courses and short seminars are currently carried out targeting physicians, nursing cadres and assistant medical technicians in order to raise awareness about the significance of medical coding; which is essentially based on medical documentation of medical records forms by the medical and nursing cadres as well as medical practitioners in a manner that facilitates the process of disease and health interventions coding.
It is noteworthy that the MOH, within the framework of efforts to promote the quality of health services and improve all health facilities’ performance, has put a five-year strategic plan to apply the International Classification of Diseases, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AMACHI / ACS) to the MOH’s hospitals and primary healthcare centers. Within the same vein, the Ministry has accredited the use of (ICD-10-AM / ACHI / ACS) in the MOH's facilities, in order to take right decisions that help plan, develop and distribute resources equally based on analyzing the Coded Data and transferring them into medical data; which can be locally benchmarked in order to promote quality.
According to a study conducted by PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS in 2009, the International Classification of Diseases, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AMACHI / ACS) has achieved unprecedented success with regard the strategic goals in the countries that have applied this classification, such as: ( Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, Turkey, South Africa, Bulgaria, Fiji, Malaysia .. etc). This success was manifested in improving the finance regulation and efficiency in hospitals (acute hospitals), as well as planning, developing, and distributing resources equally in order to provide the healthcare services, and clinical search abilities, through improving the concept of providing healthcare concepts as well as managing medical cases
It is noteworthy that the adopted system for coding the diagnosis of diseases, as well as medical and surgical interventions in the Kingdom is (ICD-10-AM/ACHI/ACS & AR-DRGs). The data needed to complete the coding process of any hospitalized case or a one-day visiting case, include the following:
- The Main Diagnosis – the reason for admitting the patient (Final Diagnosis), # 1.
- Additional Diagnosis (Co-morbidity & Complications) ; the number is indefinite
- The principle procedure; the number is 1.
- Additional procedures including surgical, nonsurgical, and diagnostic procedures, the type of anesthesia, GA, Sedation and ASA score; the number is indefinite.
As for medication coding, there is constant and close coordination between the Ministry of Health and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) as well as the other Saudi health sectors in order to adopt a unified coding system of drugs through joint teams from the various health sectors concerned with all medical coding aspects.