International Classification of Primary Care

The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) is a classification method for primary care encounters. The ICPC-3 strives to be a person centered classification for Primary Care, building on the foundations of the ICPC-2. It includes references to existing international standards such as ICD-10, ICD-11, ICF as well as SNOMED CT clinical terminology. It provides a framework for documenting and organizing clinical data from primary care patient contacts. 

The ICPC-3 includes codes for  the four key elements of healthcare encounters:
 the reason for the encounter (RFE);
 the diagnosis and/or health problem;
 functioning (i.e. information about activities/participation, physiological functions and about personal and environmental factors related to the health problem);
 processes of care.

History
The ICPC was developed by the WONCA International Classification Committee (WICC), and was first published in 1987 by Oxford University Press (OUP). A revision and inclusion of criteria and definitions was published in 1998. The second revision was accepted within the World Health Organization's (WHO) Family of International Classifications. The third revision, ICPC-3, has been adopted by WONCA in December 2020 and endorsed on April 16, 2021 during the WONCA Executive meeting. 

The classification was developed in a context of increasing demand for quality information on primary care as part of growing worldwide attention to global primary health care objectives, including the WHO's target of "health for all".

The first version of ICPC, which was published in 1987, is referred to as ICPC-1. A subsequent revision which was published in the 1993 publication The International Classification of Primary Care in the European Community: With a Multi-Language Layer is known as ICPC-E.

The 1998 publication, of version 2, is referred to as ICPC-2. The acronym ICPC-2-E, refers to a revised electronic version, which was released in 2000.

The ICPC-3 Project started January 2018 and published the ICPC-3 in 2020. ICPC-3 supports coding of reason(s) for encounter, symptoms and complaints, diagnoses, health problems, functioning, environmental factors, personal factors related to health and processes of care, all within one classification.

Browsers
The following versions of the ICPC are available at the ICPC-3 Website :
 ICPC-1e (version 1.0)
 ICPC-2e (version 7.0)
 ICPC-3 (international 2023 version)
 ICPC-3 (portuguese 2023 version)

See also

Classifications
Medical classification
Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (ATC classification for drugs)
Classification of Pharmaco-Therapeutic Referrals (CPR)
International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)
ICPC-2 PLUS
Health care
Family medicine / Family practice
General practice / General practitioner
Primary care
Primary health care
Referral (medicine)
Health informatics
Electronic health record
International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee on Health Informatics
World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA)
WONCA International Classification Committee (WICC)

References

Bibliography 
 Napel H. ten, et al. Improving Primary Health Care Data With ICPC-3: From a Medical to a Person-Centered Perspective. The Annals of Family Medicine July 2022, 20 (4) 358-361

External links 
 WICC at WONCA
 Primary Healthcare Classification Consortium (Classification Committee)
 University of Sydney Family Medicine Research Centre
 ICPC publication bibliography

Primary care
General practice
Medical classification
International Classification of Diseases
Diagnosis codes
Clinical procedure classification