What is the importance of clinical coding in South Sudan health facilities?

Clinical coding is important for several reasons: it enables standardised reporting of diseases and causes of death; it supports health planning by providing accurate data on the disease burden; it is required for health insurance billing (which will become increasingly important as South Sudan develops its health financing system); and it enables international comparisons of health data. The transition to ICD-11 is an opportunity to build clinical coding capacity in South Sudan.

Implementing clinical coding requires training health workers on the coding system, integrating coding into electronic health records, and establishing quality assurance processes to ensure codes are assigned correctly. SSHIA is working with the Ministry of Health to develop a national clinical coding training programme.