 the international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems, usually called by the short-form name international classification of diseases (icd), is the international "standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes". the icd is maintained by the world health organization, the directing and coordinating authority for health within the united nations system. the icd is designed as a health care classification system, providing a system of diagnostic codes for classifying diseases, including nuanced classifications of a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or disease. this system is designed to map health conditions to corresponding generic categories together with specific variations, assigning for these a designated code, up to six characters long. thus, major categories are designed to include a set of similar diseases. the international classification of diseases is published by the world health organization (who) and used worldwide for morbidity and mortality statistics, reimbursement systems, and automated decision support in health care. this system is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of these statistics. as in the case of the analogous (but limited to mental and behavioral disorders) diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm, currently in version 5), the icd is a major project to statistically classify health disorders, and provide diagnostic assistance. the icd is a core statistically-based classificatory diagnostic system for health care related issues of the who family of international classifications (who-fic). the icd is revised periodically and is currently in its tenth revision. the icd-10, as it is therefore known, was developed in 1992 to track health statistics. icd-11 is planned for 2017.a beta-version of icd-11 has been posted 
Diagnosis_classification Health_standards International_Classification_of_Diseases Medical_classification Medical_manuals Mental_and_behavioural_disorders Psychopathology Statistical_data_coding World_Health_Organization