The establishment of a Pacific Centre on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD) 11 Field Implementation Tool (FIT) platform was the highlight of a 2-week training on the International Statistical Classification of Disease that concluded last week in Nadi, Fiji.
ICD mortality codes are used to produce standardised cause-of-death data for health planning, monitoring and evaluation at national and regional/international levels. Mortality statistics on causes of death are one of the principal data sources for assessing a population’s health and guiding public priorities.
To better transition Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) towards ICD 11, the Pacific Centre will be set up within the ICD Field Implementation Tool (ICD-FIT) and will also allow the region to access further training activities in ICD-11 while providing more hands-on experience on ICD-11 coding.
This training was facilitated by the Pacific Community (SPC), World Health Organisation (WHO) Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems with support from Vital Strategies and Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health initiative. The 10-day training was attended by 16 participants from Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu.