Abstract
Patient Classification System is a public information infrastructure for standardized collection of clinical information, and its coding rules are officially maintained and disseminated by public sectors in many developed countries, except for Japan. Lack of publicly available standardized rules may seriously threaten the validity of coding results. In the present study, we originally developed and released a Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) coding program for an open resource use in common to improve the standardization and accuracy of coding procedures. In detail, our developed program automatically produced DPC codes based on selective information in FF1, E and F files. Empirical tests confirmed that the developed program successfully created coding results compatible to those as originally submitted in the D file, at a practically acceptable speed. We further argued the necessity of a legislative framework for standardization of coding logic and compliance of grouper software developers to the standards in this country.
