he International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) is being developed to provide a common tool for reporting and analysing health interventions for statistical purposes. A health intervention is an act performed for, with or on behalf of a person or population whose purpose is to assess, improve, maintain, promote or modify health, functioning or health conditions. ICHI covers interventions carried out by a broad range of providers across the full scope of health systems and includes interventions on: diagnostic, medical, surgical, mental health, primary care, allied health, functioning support, rehabilitation, traditional medicine and public health.
The classification is built around three axes: Target (the entity on which the Action is carried out), Action (a deed done by an actor to a target) and Means (the processes and methods by which the Action is carried out). Extension codes, including lists of therapeutic products, assistive products and medicaments, are provided to allow users to describe additional detail about the intervention in addition to the relevant ICHI code. A simple, logical syntax has been adopted to link ICHI stem codes and extension codes, interventions performed together, and packages of interventions.
The number of interventions in ICHI, and consequently the level of detail (granularity) of the classification, has been determined with regard to the use cases for ICHI and the need for stability of the classification over time.
The Beta-2 version of ICHI was released in October 2018. Further testing will be undertaken during 2019 and once finalized, ICHI will be freely available for adoption by Member States Find out more