Clinical terminology and COVID-19: IMO’s ongoing response to the pandemic

IMO is committed to ensuring providers have the most up-to-date clinical terminology for documenting cases of the novel coronavirus. To help our healthcare partners manage and minimize the spread of COVID-19 – and to give providers sufficient time to align their systems with recent regulatory announcements – our December release contains updated mappings, clinical terminologies, and procedure codes related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
IMO-ongoing-response-to-pandemic

IMO’s December content release includes new clinical terminology and updated coding maps to address the approval of a vaccine for COVID-19, as well as other developments in our knowledge about the virus. Corresponding regulatory changes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the Regenstrief Institute, and the American Medical Association (AMA) will be effective January 1, 2021. Various teams at IMO have worked diligently to address these updates so providers have access to this important information in advance of their effective date.

The December release includes new terminology for IMO Core and IMO Core Procedure. Additionally, the release contains updated mappings for both IMO Precision Sets and the problem list management functionality of IMO Core.

Updates to IMO Core include:

  • New terms corresponding to the six recently released ICD-10-CM codes for conditions related to COVID-19
  • Vaccine-specific terminology for managing the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine series and documenting potential vaccine side effects
  • Terminology to document clinical scenarios and laboratory tests related to the treatment of COVID-19, which align with releases from ICD-10-CM and SNOMED CT®
  • Organization of these terms into the appropriate groups within IMO Core’s problem list management tool

 Updates to IMO Core Procedure and IMO Precision Sets include:

  • Terminology supporting the documentation of COVID-19 vaccine administration, relevant laboratory tests and results, and new coronavirus-specific infusion treatments authorized under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization
  • Alignment of IMO’s terms with code updates from CMS, AMA, Regenstrief, Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS), and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Procedure Coding System (ICD-10-PCS)
  • IMO terms that match pre-release LOINC codes for the testing and reporting of COVID-19 cases
  • New testing codes within the laboratory test result value sets found in IMO Precision COVID-19 Sets, available free of charge to IMO customers

IMO closely tracks developments in the COVID-19 pandemic. As new clinical concepts and codes are created, we will assess any releases and respond as quickly as possible to provide the most updated resources for COVID-19 vaccination, documentation, and reporting needs.

To learn more about our response to the coronavirus, visit the COVID-19 section of our Ideas blog.

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