Dr. Paul McKeown:

It is largely administrative but, by the same token, it allows financial comparisons to be made and helps to describe the disease. Medical students learn diseases based on whichever edition of the ICD is available. It assists doctors in clinical identification but it is primarily clinical guidelines that assist in the treatment of patients and the correct diagnosis and how they would be categorised. It is then, based upon what the clinician determines is the diagnosis, that they are fitted into the ICD-10 boxes. That then allows the accurate determination of the complexity in the cost to the hospital. It is a way of bringing all of those disparate areas together.