Matching GP terms to the ICD-10-AM index

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Medical Classification Systems

Background:

• The General Practice Coding Jury recommended evaluating the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM) index.
• Preliminary work was conducted by the National Centre for Classification in Health (NCCH) to assess index coverage for general practice (GP) data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the content coverage of the ICD-10-AM index for general practice terminology.
• To assess the suitability of the ICD-10-AM index for coding Australian general practice data.

Main Methods:

• Terms from Australian general practices and coordinated care trials were extracted.
• These terms were matched against the ICD-10-AM index to determine coverage.
• The NCCH developed a methodology for this evaluation.

Main Results:

• A 58% match rate was found for direct general practice (GP) term/ICD-10-AM index term matches.
• An 88% rate of acceptable concept matches was achieved, indicating broader conceptual coverage.
• The ICD-10-AM index demonstrated partial support for GP coding concepts.

Conclusions:

• The developed methodology is valuable for assessing classification index coverage.
• The ICD-10-AM index supports many general practice (GP) concepts but requires enhancements for precise term matching.
• Further work is needed to augment the ICD-10-AM index for comprehensive GP data classification.