The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released its new International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
 
The ICD is the foundation for identifying health trends and statistics worldwide, and contains around 55,000 unique codes for injuries, diseases and causes of death. It provides a common language that allows health professionals to share health information across the globe.

The ICD also is used by health insurers whose reimbursements depend on ICD coding; national health program managers; data collection specialists; and others who track progress in global health and determine the allocation of health resources.

ICD-11, which has been more than a decade in the making, provides significant advancements on previous versions. For the first time, it is completely electronic and has a more user-friendly format. And there has been unprecedented involvement of healthcare workers who have joined collaborative meetings and submitted proposals, according to WHO.
 
ICD-11 will be presented at the World Health Assembly in May 2019 for adoption by member states and will come into effect Jan. 1, 2022. This release is an advance preview that will allow countries to plan how to use the new version, prepare translations and train health professionals.

Transitioning to a new ICD is no small undertaking. The rollout of ICD-10 in the United States began with a mandate to adopt new codes in 2009, but adoption wasn’t completed until 2015.
 
The new ICD-11 aims to reflect progress in medicine and advances in science. For example, the codes relating to antimicrobial resistance are more closely in line with the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS). ICD-11 also aims to better capture data regarding safety in healthcare, with the goal of identifying and reducing unnecessary events that may cause harm.
 
ICD-11 also includes new chapters, including one on traditional medicine, which has never been classified in this system; and one on sexual health, which brings together conditions that were previously categorized or described differently. Gaming disorder has been added to the section on addictive disorders.