WHO-FIC The WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC), also called the WHO Family, is a suit of classifications used to describe various aspects of the health care system in a consistent manner, with a standardised terminology. The abbreviation is variously written with or without a hyphen ("WHO-FIC" or "WHOFIC"). The WHO-FIC consists of four components: the WHO-FIC Foundation, the Reference Classifications, the Derived Classifications, and the Related Classifications. The WHO-FIC Foundation, also called the Foundation Component, represents the entire WHO-FIC universe. It is a collection of over hundred thousand entities, also called classes or nodes. Entities are anything relevant to health care. They are used to describe diseases, disorders, body parts, bodily functions, reasons for visit, medical procedures, microbes, causes of death, social circumstances of the patient, and much more. The Foundation Component is a multidimensional collection of entities. An entity can have multiple parents and child nodes. For example, pneumonia can be categorized as a lung infection, but also as a bacterial or viral infection (i.e. by site or by etiology). Thus, the node Pneumonia (entity id: ) has two parents: Lung infections (entity id: ) and Certain infectious or parasitic diseases (entity id: ). The Pneumonia node in turn has various children, including Bacterial pneumonia (entity id: ) and Viral pneumonia (entity id: ). The Foundation Component is the common core on which all Reference and Derived Classifications are based. The WHO-FIC contains three Reference Classifications: the<unk>  MMS (see below), the ICF, and the ICHI. Derived Classifications are based on the three Reference Classifications, and are usually tailored for a particular specialty. For example, the<unk> -O is a Derived Classification used in oncology. Each node of the Foundation has a unique entity id, which remains the same in all Reference and Derived Classifications, guaranteeing consistency. Related Classifications are complementary, and cover specialty areas not covered elsewhere in the WHO-FIC. For example, the International Classification of Nursing Practice (ICNP), draws on terms from the Foundation Component, but also uses terms specific for nursing not found in the Foundation. A classification can be represented as a tabular list, which is a 'flat' hierarchical tree of categories. In this tree, all entities can only have a single parent, and therefore must be mutually exclusive of each other. Such a classification is also called a linearization.<unk>  MMS The<unk>  MMS is the main Reference Classification of the WHO-FIC, and the primary linearization of the Foundation Component. The<unk>  MMS is commonly referred to as simply "the<unk> ". The "MMS" was added to differentiate the<unk>  entities in the Foundation from those in the Classification. The<unk>  MMS does not contain all classes from the Foundation<unk> , and also adds some classes from the ICF. MMS stands for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics. The abbreviation is variously written with or without a hyphen between<unk>  and MMS <unk>  MMS" or<unk> -MMS"). The<unk>  MMS consists of approximately 85,000 entities. Entities can be chapters, blocks or categories. A chapter is a top level entity of the hierarchy; the MMS contains 28 of them (see Chapters section below). A block is used to group related categories or blocks together. A category can be anything that is relevant to health care. Every category has a unique, alphanumeric code called an<unk>  code, or just<unk>  code. Chapters and blocks never have<unk>  codes, and therefore cannot be diagnosed. An<unk>  code is not the same as an entity id. The<unk>  MMS takes the form of a 'flat' hierarchical tree. As aforementioned, the entities in this linearization can only have a single parent, and therefore must be mutually exclusive of each other. To make up for this limitation, the hierarchy of the MMS contains gray nodes. These nodes appear as children in the hierarchy, but actually have a different parent node. They originally belong to a different block or chapter, but are also listed elsewhere because of overlap. For example, Pneumonia () has two parents in the Foundation: "Lung infections" (site) and "Certain infectious or parasitic diseases" (etiology). In the MMS, Pneumonia is categorized in the "Lung infections", with a gray node in "Certain infectious or parasitic diseases". The same goes for injuries, poisonings, neoplasms, and developmental anomalies, which can occur in almost any part of the body. They each have their own chapters, but their categories also have gray nodes in the chapters of the organs they affect. For instance, the blood cancers, including all forms of leukemia, are in the "Neoplasms" chapter, but they are also displayed as gray nodes in the chapter "Diseases of the blood or blood-forming organs". The<unk>  MMS also contains residual categories, or residual nodes. These are the 'Other specified' and 'Unspecified' categories, miscellaneous classes which can be used to code conditions that do not fit with any of the more specific MMS entities. In the<unk>  Browser, residual nodes are displayed in a maroon color. Residual categories are not in the Foundation, and therefore are the only classes with derivative entity IDs: their IDs are the same as their parent nodes, with "/mms/otherspecified" or "/mms/unspecified" tagged at the end. Their<unk>  codes always end with Y for 'Other specified' categories, or Z for 'Unspecified' categories (e.g. and ). Health informatics The<unk> , both the<unk>  Foundation and the MMS, can be accessed using a multilingual REST API. Documentation on the<unk> -API and some additional tools for integration into third party applications can be found at the<unk> -API home page. A FHIR API is under development. The WHO has released a map that can be used to link and convert<unk>  terms to those of the<unk> . In 2017, SNOMED International announced plans to release a SNOMED CT to<unk>  MMS map. The<unk>  Foundation, and subsequently the MMS, are updated annually, similarly to the<unk> . , four versions of the MMS have been released, the latest in May 2021.
ICD-11
ICD-10
ICD-10-CM
EPI-001
DSM-5
SmiNet
EP Europace
DSM-IV codes