The use of text encoding in the development of a terminology and knowledge system associated with the Norwegian...

In order to achieve a high quality on the coding work according to the ICD-10 in Norway, we have selected a new method for developing a Norwegian version. The objective is to arrive at a version which will ensure safe and easy coding. Standardization of nomenclature/terminology has been emphasized, leaving the users in no doubt as to what is the preferred terminology. Separate auxiliary applications for the ICD-10 are developed to make search operations more efficient in the coding work. For each code, a selected amount of supplementary information is given, enabling the user to check, on a medical basis, whether or not the selected code is the correct one. The ICD-10 will appear in SGML format, a markup language which, to our knowledge, has not been used for medical classification systems before. This format is well-suited for the development of multilingual classification systems, a fact which WHO should consider when they now start to develop the ICD-11.