We have shared here many times the angst of those who are worried about the ICD-10 coding classification transition that goes into effect on October 1, 2014. The new classification system has five times the number of codes, hence the angst.
In the world of taxonomy, though, it is just another classification scheme. A large one, yes, but a classification scheme no different from any other hierarchical or drill-down scheme where data flows from parent to child. ICD-10 originated as an international standard with 12 top-level nodes that drill down to about four or five levels. Specifically, the ICD-10 codes consist of two parts: ICD-10-CM for diagnosis coding and the ICD-10-PCS for inpatient procedure coding. Basically, one taxonomy is for diseases and one is for procedures to treat diseases. GCN brought this news to our attention in their article, “Stop the fear mongering over ICD-10: It’s just another taxonomy.”
A standards-based taxonomy can help you provide clear order to your data, which enables comprehensive search results. Standards are key to a solid taxonomy and comprehensive indexing. Access Innovations, developer of the M.A.I. machine assisted indexing system on which Access Integrity’s ICD Tagger technology is based, specializes in complex coding, tagging, and indexing. Access Innovations provides training to a client’s staff and then offers quality assurance and validation services that can assist in minimizing the risk of a coding error and identifying inappropriately applied tags.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
