The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC-2): an essential tool in the EPR of the GP.

Marc Verbeke M.D., Diëgo Schrans M.D., Sven Deroose M.D., Jan De Maeseneer M.D. Ph.D
 Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Belgium
Abstract.
The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) has become a standard all over the world. It became a standard tool to classify the important elements in the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) of the GP: reasons for encounter (RFE) reflecting the patient’s view, process of care (decision, action, intervention or plans) reflecting the care process, and the assessment (diagnosis or health issue) reflecting the doctor’s view. ICPC-2 is fully compatible with structuring data in the episode of care model and it’s reflecting the essential elements of each patient/provider encounter. To implement ICPC-2 in the EPR a Thesaurus has been developed in Belgium with double encoded clinical labels. The implementation is now mandatory for labelled EPR systems in Belgium. The use of ICPC 2 may improve the accessibility and use of online Expert systems and Guidelines. Keywords: Medical Informatics, ICPC, primary care, thesaurus, medical record