At the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, it is Day 8 of ICD iCamp. Our participants were in two groups today.
Our computer experts improved the software in line with the requests made by the users. They have a long list still to cover and we are jointly setting priorities how to make computers serve our objectives.
Our Managing Editors met to test the amended procedures they have been refining content model within the iCAT platform. Second time around they were much more familiar with the system and made further refinements… such as methods for dealing with conflict resolution when there are multiple ideas for a single parameter.
Meanwhile, upstairs, the Classification Experts were dealing with Volumes 2 and 3 of ICD, which in the ICD-10 included the instructions and rules for classification using ICD, and also the Index that we discussed yesterday. Both the rules manual and the Index must be incorporated within or linked to the ICD-11 electronic platform.
Tomorrow is the last day. We need to get all the loose ends tied. More importantly we will have the evaluation of the iCAMP and plan for the future steps. Join us again tomorrow for the last day for the World Health Organization ICD iCamp. If you wish to join the process you can find us on youtube, twitter and facebook too in addition to the WHO web site on classifications…
01 October 2009
29 September 2009
Day 6
It's Day 6 at the World Health Organization ICD iCamp in Geneva, Switzerland and our participants continue on, preparing for the enormous task of creating ICD-11. The primary focus of our work today was to create the appropriate documentation to support the iCAT platform. A big part of this process involves the concept of RTFM, also known as Read the Fabulous Manual.
Our Managing Editors and Classification Experts are now well versed in the general workflows of the review process and the iCat platform. Not only must they be able to use the system, however, they must also be able to teach others how to use it, as well. This will include future users of iCAT, such as TAG members, workgoup members, and later on, in the beta draft, any individual contributor.
Our participants split into several small groups, and began the process of reviewing and refining the two manuals which will serve as supportive references. The first manual, known as the Style Guide, is for the ICD content model, providing clarification on how to create each ICD category and explaining the requirements for each parameter within the model. The second manual, a guide for reviewers, will outline the criteria and procedures to be used in selecting the content proposal peer reviewers and in the process of the actual review.
Part of the process will involve more in depth review of the iCat platform, from a more technical perspective. This process is very important, as the sheer volume of work required to create the ICD-11 would not be possible without the contributions from many qualified individuals and expert groups.
We have three more days of ICD iCamp, and a lot of work still to do. Stay with us as we prepare to launch the next stage of the ICD-11 project.
Our Managing Editors and Classification Experts are now well versed in the general workflows of the review process and the iCat platform. Not only must they be able to use the system, however, they must also be able to teach others how to use it, as well. This will include future users of iCAT, such as TAG members, workgoup members, and later on, in the beta draft, any individual contributor.
Our participants split into several small groups, and began the process of reviewing and refining the two manuals which will serve as supportive references. The first manual, known as the Style Guide, is for the ICD content model, providing clarification on how to create each ICD category and explaining the requirements for each parameter within the model. The second manual, a guide for reviewers, will outline the criteria and procedures to be used in selecting the content proposal peer reviewers and in the process of the actual review.
Part of the process will involve more in depth review of the iCat platform, from a more technical perspective. This process is very important, as the sheer volume of work required to create the ICD-11 would not be possible without the contributions from many qualified individuals and expert groups.
We have three more days of ICD iCamp, and a lot of work still to do. Stay with us as we prepare to launch the next stage of the ICD-11 project.
28 September 2009
Day 5
Welcome back to the start of the second week of ICD iCamp at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. All of our iCampers have made it back from Mont Blanc, and are refreshed and ready to start another productive week. Today's topic was workflows.
After the focused and specific review done last week, our Managing Editors and Classification Experts had the opportunity today to reexamine how each of the components we have covered so far fits into the workflows in general. This is a chance to organize the big picture together with the small details, and understand what all of the combined efforts will accomplish.
In order to do this, it is necessary to revisit the life of a content proposal from start to finish. In the beginning, a content proposal for ICD-11 will be created by a collaborative author. This author might be a government supported content expert, a member of a classification group, or a private individual such as a clinician or an academic member of a research institution. The beauty of a collaborative authoring tool like the iCAT is that it allows the creation of the ICD-11 to draw on the expertise of anyone at anytime, anywhere in the world.
After a proposal is created, the Managing Editor will serve as "postmaster", ensuring that each proposal is complete and correctly formatted, as well as thoroughly supported, before forwarding the content proposal on to the specifically chosen team of independent peer reviewers. It is also the job of the Managing Editor to filter out or address those proposals which do not fulfill the necessary criteria.
Those content proposals which receive the appropriate percentage of approvals by the peer reviewers will be passed along to the Topic Advisory Group for further review. The TAG is responsible for further evaluation of the content proposal and the supporting information provided. Each content proposal which reaches this stage may also require the review of other, parallel, TAGs, if the content of the proposal overlaps between multiple TAG areas.
Each proposal which meets the exacting requirements of the TAG or TAGs will be passed along for further evaluation by the Revision Steering Group. This process will ensure that all of the information to be included in the ICD-11 meets the highest possible standards, which in turn ensures the best possible resource for users in the field.
But we’re not done; all of this is merely the alpha draft, and we’ll have more to do before we can be sure that the ICD-11 is perfect and perfectly functional. Come back tomorrow for more of ICD iCamp.
After the focused and specific review done last week, our Managing Editors and Classification Experts had the opportunity today to reexamine how each of the components we have covered so far fits into the workflows in general. This is a chance to organize the big picture together with the small details, and understand what all of the combined efforts will accomplish.
In order to do this, it is necessary to revisit the life of a content proposal from start to finish. In the beginning, a content proposal for ICD-11 will be created by a collaborative author. This author might be a government supported content expert, a member of a classification group, or a private individual such as a clinician or an academic member of a research institution. The beauty of a collaborative authoring tool like the iCAT is that it allows the creation of the ICD-11 to draw on the expertise of anyone at anytime, anywhere in the world.
After a proposal is created, the Managing Editor will serve as "postmaster", ensuring that each proposal is complete and correctly formatted, as well as thoroughly supported, before forwarding the content proposal on to the specifically chosen team of independent peer reviewers. It is also the job of the Managing Editor to filter out or address those proposals which do not fulfill the necessary criteria.
Those content proposals which receive the appropriate percentage of approvals by the peer reviewers will be passed along to the Topic Advisory Group for further review. The TAG is responsible for further evaluation of the content proposal and the supporting information provided. Each content proposal which reaches this stage may also require the review of other, parallel, TAGs, if the content of the proposal overlaps between multiple TAG areas.
Each proposal which meets the exacting requirements of the TAG or TAGs will be passed along for further evaluation by the Revision Steering Group. This process will ensure that all of the information to be included in the ICD-11 meets the highest possible standards, which in turn ensures the best possible resource for users in the field.
But we’re not done; all of this is merely the alpha draft, and we’ll have more to do before we can be sure that the ICD-11 is perfect and perfectly functional. Come back tomorrow for more of ICD iCamp.
Day 4
Here at ICD iCamp at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, we have reached the end of the first week. Today our iCampers have split into two groups, not because of any internal conflict, but rather to have the time to attend to matters requiring more specialized expertise. One group is composed of Managing Editors, the other of the Classification Experts.
Our managing editors began to work more precisely on the content generation and review process, including the procedures for identification of the peer reviewers, methods for compiling and tracking the reviews, and management of the joint decision process by the TAG.
In another room, the classification experts began to really dig into the review of the start-up linearization. They are comparing the iCAT prefilled data against the National Clinical Modifications for accuracy, identifying potential issues, and comparing the modifications against identified Use-Cases, such as mortality, morbidity and primary care.
Apart from the open discussion among the individuals, there were also focus group sessions. These were semi-structured reviews of the requirements by the Managing Editors and Classification Experts. These focus groups were moderated by Informatics Expert Dr Sean Falconer of the University of Victoria in Canada, part of the team responsible for evaluation and requirements gathering. In collaboration with the iCampers, Dr Falconer and Professor Peggy Storey will gather these responses and formulate them into proposals to the iCat team. The purpose for this exercise is to ensure that the program design serves the exact requirements of the users.
All of the work this week has been to ensure two important things. First, that we create the best possible platform to support the creation of the ICD-11, and second, to evaluate and perfect the process that will be used in the technical and content revision from beginning to end. This weekend iCampers will go and climb the Mont Blanc! It will certainly be a swifter job than building the ICD11. Join us again on Monday as we head into the second week.
Our managing editors began to work more precisely on the content generation and review process, including the procedures for identification of the peer reviewers, methods for compiling and tracking the reviews, and management of the joint decision process by the TAG.
In another room, the classification experts began to really dig into the review of the start-up linearization. They are comparing the iCAT prefilled data against the National Clinical Modifications for accuracy, identifying potential issues, and comparing the modifications against identified Use-Cases, such as mortality, morbidity and primary care.
Apart from the open discussion among the individuals, there were also focus group sessions. These were semi-structured reviews of the requirements by the Managing Editors and Classification Experts. These focus groups were moderated by Informatics Expert Dr Sean Falconer of the University of Victoria in Canada, part of the team responsible for evaluation and requirements gathering. In collaboration with the iCampers, Dr Falconer and Professor Peggy Storey will gather these responses and formulate them into proposals to the iCat team. The purpose for this exercise is to ensure that the program design serves the exact requirements of the users.
All of the work this week has been to ensure two important things. First, that we create the best possible platform to support the creation of the ICD-11, and second, to evaluate and perfect the process that will be used in the technical and content revision from beginning to end. This weekend iCampers will go and climb the Mont Blanc! It will certainly be a swifter job than building the ICD11. Join us again on Monday as we head into the second week.
Day 3
Hello and welcome back to Geneva, Switzerland for Day 3 of the ICD iCamp.
On day 1 managing editors took on the role of a "proposal generator" for ICD-11. After reviewing the sample outputs in the iCAT platform yesterday, today they will role play as reviewers today.
In any scientific journal there is an editorial board, for ICD-11, that board is the Topic Advisory Group. Currently we have 12 TAGs each responsible for a different area of the ICD such as: Internal Medicine, Mental Health, Neurology, Dermatology, Maternal Health and many others…
The TAG has many functions in overall design of the future ICD. Most importantly today, we discussed how the TAG engages reviewers who are experts in the relevant field. Those reviewers evaluate the content proposals based on criteria such as:
- accuracy,
- relevance,
- reliability, and
- utility.
Population of the content model and the subsequent review process will serve as the foundation for the creation of the ICD-11. Tomorrow, we'll have a chance to review, and examine how each piece we have covered fits into the workflow in general.
On day 1 managing editors took on the role of a "proposal generator" for ICD-11. After reviewing the sample outputs in the iCAT platform yesterday, today they will role play as reviewers today.
In any scientific journal there is an editorial board, for ICD-11, that board is the Topic Advisory Group. Currently we have 12 TAGs each responsible for a different area of the ICD such as: Internal Medicine, Mental Health, Neurology, Dermatology, Maternal Health and many others…
The TAG has many functions in overall design of the future ICD. Most importantly today, we discussed how the TAG engages reviewers who are experts in the relevant field. Those reviewers evaluate the content proposals based on criteria such as:
- accuracy,
- relevance,
- reliability, and
- utility.
Population of the content model and the subsequent review process will serve as the foundation for the creation of the ICD-11. Tomorrow, we'll have a chance to review, and examine how each piece we have covered fits into the workflow in general.
24 September 2009
Day 2
Welcome to Day 2 of ICD iCamp at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Our participants are back, ready to start the hands-on work of creating the alpha-draft of the ICD-11.
The iCampers come from a variety of backgrounds and are filling many roles. We have WHO staff members, Managing Editors for Topic Advisory Groups, or "TAGs", Classification Experts, and Informatics Experts.
The ICD-11 will be a collaboratively authored project, and many people will be submitting proposals for content, much like wikipedia. Unlike Wiki, however, the ICD will be peer reviewed with the TAGs serving as the editorial boards. The Managing Editor for each TAG will have a huge job. They will collect, synthesize, and present the information for each proposal, and they are responsible for ensuring that the correct team of reviewers is selected. The managing editor is responsible for the timely management of the information in the iCAT platform.
WHO appreciates the many WHO Collaborating Centres who sent us their Classification Experts. These individuals are top specialists in the international clinical modifications, and they are contributing to the creation of the classification hierarchy of the ICD-11, known as linearization, to be used within the iCAT tool.
Our iCamp Informatics experts include programmers, modelers, and expert professionals in workflow and social computing.
All of these participants are contributing to the refinement and population of the "content model" for each diagnostic classification term. This content model is the most important difference between the ICD-10 and the ICD-11. Based on the operational definition of a disease, the ICD-11 content model was created to represent the descriptive characteristics of a ICD category in a digital way. Transforming clinical characteristics into computerized parameters will help users to classify the diseases in a new and better way.
It was a long day, as our experts worked on a few examples each, learning the system, and transferring their considerable knowledge into the iCAT's brain.
Throughout the day, our Informatics Experts were on hand to modify the system, to better suit the clinical applications the ICD-11 will have to fit. After hours of work, our participants had a chance to present their populated examples, to further enable discussion on how to make this the best platform yet.
Of course, all of this work must still be reviewed, and the process for this must be both reasonable and rigorous, but it's been a long day and our iCampers have been working hard, so we'll start learning about that process tomorrow.
The iCampers come from a variety of backgrounds and are filling many roles. We have WHO staff members, Managing Editors for Topic Advisory Groups, or "TAGs", Classification Experts, and Informatics Experts.
The ICD-11 will be a collaboratively authored project, and many people will be submitting proposals for content, much like wikipedia. Unlike Wiki, however, the ICD will be peer reviewed with the TAGs serving as the editorial boards. The Managing Editor for each TAG will have a huge job. They will collect, synthesize, and present the information for each proposal, and they are responsible for ensuring that the correct team of reviewers is selected. The managing editor is responsible for the timely management of the information in the iCAT platform.
WHO appreciates the many WHO Collaborating Centres who sent us their Classification Experts. These individuals are top specialists in the international clinical modifications, and they are contributing to the creation of the classification hierarchy of the ICD-11, known as linearization, to be used within the iCAT tool.
Our iCamp Informatics experts include programmers, modelers, and expert professionals in workflow and social computing.
All of these participants are contributing to the refinement and population of the "content model" for each diagnostic classification term. This content model is the most important difference between the ICD-10 and the ICD-11. Based on the operational definition of a disease, the ICD-11 content model was created to represent the descriptive characteristics of a ICD category in a digital way. Transforming clinical characteristics into computerized parameters will help users to classify the diseases in a new and better way.
It was a long day, as our experts worked on a few examples each, learning the system, and transferring their considerable knowledge into the iCAT's brain.
Throughout the day, our Informatics Experts were on hand to modify the system, to better suit the clinical applications the ICD-11 will have to fit. After hours of work, our participants had a chance to present their populated examples, to further enable discussion on how to make this the best platform yet.
Of course, all of this work must still be reviewed, and the process for this must be both reasonable and rigorous, but it's been a long day and our iCampers have been working hard, so we'll start learning about that process tomorrow.
22 September 2009
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