The International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) is a system of classifying procedure codes being developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is currently only available as a beta release for additional coding work, and not yet ready for operational application. The last published version is denoted as alpha version 2.
It is intended for the ICHI to replace the International Classification of Procedures in Medicine (ICPM). The ICPM classification was developed by WHO in the 1970s; but never received the same international acceptance as ICD-9. As a result, most nations developed their own standards for coding procedures and interventions incompatible to the ICPM approach. Germany's OPS-301 is based on the Dutch extension of ICPM; the ICPM-DE.
The alpha version of WHO's ICHI was largely derived from the Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI), a portion of the Australian standard ICD-10-AM, which in turn was largely derived from ICD-10 and the United States extension ICD-9-CM. Currently (2014) the acceptance of the ICHI in the community of health care professionals might be better, but due to missing formal acceptance the spread of national variations beyond translation widely continues.
For accounting, the Australian health administration generated a code of Diagnosis-related groups which in effect again deviates from the WHO basis. The same phenomenon applies to DRG codes in Germany and other countries. Other codes generated by the UN accredited International Standards Organisation ISO defined a deviating scope. Cooperation of ISO and WHO is not detected.