What Is ICD-11?
ICD-11 is the eleventh version of the International Classification Diseases (ICD). ICD exists as a health statistics tool for coding that defines a body posing that is difficult to quantify and hard to standardize – the condition of humans.
The history of ICD is deep-rooted and dates back to sixteenth-century England when deaths from various medieval diseases such as plague, leprosy, curvy were too common.
In the 19th century, the Bertillon Classification of Causes of Death and Florence Nightingale’s advocacy triggered the statistical data gathering of diseases and deaths. Later, in the 1940s, the World Health Organization took responsibility for the ICD.
Since then, the International Classification of Diseases has undergone various revisions so as to meet the requirements of advanced health and medical challenges. On 25th May 2019, the 11th revision of the ICD was presented at the occasion of the 72nd World Health Assembly.
What’s new in ICD-11?
ICD-11 is an essential update on ICD-10. When we compare the two, ICD-11 has 55,000 distinctive codes for causes of deaths, diseases, and injuries, whereas the ICD-10 had 14,000. A huge consultation resulted in 10,000 proposals for improvement and change.
ICD-11 opens doors for discovering various new aspects such as a separate chapter on sexual health that puts forward several conditions that were earlier classified differently. Moreover, Gender incongruence is added in this chapter, which now reflects that it is not a type of mental health condition. Re-classification is expected to help in reducing the stigma clinging to gender-defined states.
Another chapter addition emphasizes the use of traditional medicine, which is common in several countries such as Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea. However, the director of WHO explained that this chapter does not endorse or refer to any type of traditional medicine treatment.
Additionally, stroke in ICD-11 has been listed as a neurological disorder that was previously listed as a circulatory system disorder.
The new classification of HIV now recognizes improvements in HIV therapy that should be seen now as a chronic condition. However, allergy in ICD-11 is coded under immune system diseases. The updated description of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder clearly states that the symptoms do not occur within a certain range to lead to its diagnosis.
ICD has enhanced the ability to code for the safety and quality of healthcare and outlines the role that external factors play, which indirectly and directly contributes to human health, such as lack of social welfare support.
This new revision of ICD is a major step towards improves health and medical standards across the globe. ICD-11 is entirely electronic; hence it will help in better implementation, reducing errors in diagnosis, and making it easily adaptable for local country context.
Differences Between ICD-10 and ICD-11
Some huge differences between ICD-10 and ICD-11 also involve coding schemes, i.e., codes structuring. ICD-11 changes the third character category codes (characters to the decimal’s left)to four with an alpha character in the second place and number always in the third position.
Every code’s first character establishes a correlation with the chapter number. For example, for chapters 1 to 9, the chapter number will b mirrored in the codes’ first character. Whereas for chapters 10 to 27, the first character or code is a letter. Hence, all codes in every single chapter will start with the same character.
Some changes mentioned by the doctors are:
Extra enthusiasm for video games is now defined as a health disorder.
Transsexualism and other disorders relating to gender identity are no longer defines as behavioral and mental disorders. They are now listed in a new section of sexual health. ‘Gender Mismatch’ is the new name for the section. This is expected to reflect the existing understanding of such conditions and assist in eliminating the stigma attached to these health conditions gradually.
Other significant changes involve:
The disappearance of the diagnosis of “Hermaphroditism.” This condition is now defined as a violation of gender Formation.
Moreover, instead of Pedophilia, a pedophilic disorder has surfaced in the ICD-11. It can only be diagnosed if an individual is extremely anxious about his actions, moves, or preferences.
Another disorder has occurred, which is associated with the violation of the integrity of an individual’s body perception – when an individual wants to lose his limbs, sight, or become paralyzed.
Does ICD-11 Contain Increased Number Of Diseases?
The answer is ‘YES.’ The 10th revision of the ICD had 14,400 codes whereas in ICD-11, there are 55,000 codes. However, it does not mean that new diseases have surfaced. The new revision also contains circumstances that affect human health conditions, such as poor personal hygiene or dissatisfaction with a situation at work or school.
The changed number of items in ICD-11 is considered very helpful as they enable researchers and health professionals to have a look at a clearer picture. Such as all kinds of diabetes are defined in detail, and it turns out there are more than just two types. Also, diseases that occur on the back of HIV infection now have unique codes. Additionally, rare genetic diseases are separately encoded now.
There is also a new section that discusses “Objects involved in the injury” that involves all types of harmful things such as weapons, marsupials, bombs, wristwatches, etc.