The ICD, since inception a century ago has become an integral part of strategic health information providing comparable data on the extent, causes and consequences of human disease and death.  This information is invaluable especially for service planning, provision of quality care and health research. 

With support from WHO, the Ministry of Health and Social Services held a workshop with various stakeholders, including medical doctors and Health Information System (HIS) officers, to develop the ICD-11 Transition Plan. This effort is focused on preparing these teams for the smooth transition from the 10th to the 11^th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 11) for morbidity purposes and improving the handling of Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCoD) procedures for e-death notification system.

ICD 11:

• allows the systematic recording, analysis, interpretation and comparison of mortality and morbidity data collected in different countries or regions and at different times;
• ensures semantic interoperability and reusability of recorded data for the different use cases beyond mere health statistics, including decision support, resource allocation, reimbursement, guidelines and more.

The ICD-11 Transition Plan Development meeting was guided by the WHO ICD-11 Implementation or Transition Guide which provided a comprehensive detail of the objectives of the development of an ICD-11 Transition Plan.

Detailed stakeholder discussions on the ICD-11 Implementation and Transition Guide identified the following priority areas:

1. Capacity building (ICD-11 familiarization and training)
2. Information technology infrastructure (IT planning and piloting ICD-11)
3. Data management (ensure comparability and quality of mortality and morbidity data reporting)
4. Leadership/Governance (Advocacy and dissemination)

The three-day workshop had representation from key stakeholders including development cooperation partners (WHO), US Government agency (CDC), academic institution (NUST), the private sector (NAMAF), government entities (Ministry of Health and Social Services- National, Regional, District levels), Namibia Statistics Agency. The inputs from the stakeholders were coordinated during the workshop in the development of the ICD-11 Transition Plan.