Thomas Helfer, Ph.D.
On May 22, 2001 the World health Assembly officially approved the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and its abbreviation (ICF). This official approval happened after the World Health Organization (WHO) had been coordinating revision efforts on the earlier International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH) for 9 years.
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) houses the WHO Collaborating Center for the Family of International Classifications for North America. This center has coordinated US revision activities to ICF since 1993.
The ICF compliments WHO's International Classification of Diseases-10th Revision (ICD). The - ICD contains information on diagnostic classifications and health conditions. The ICD does not however cover functional status. That is the purpose of ICF. The language of the ICF focuses on function rather than condition or disease.The ICF is structured around
The Military Health services each have their own functional health status regulations defining standards of fitness for duty and retention in military service. Each service's standards of fitness are particular to each service. No services standard is expressed according to an international classification of function like the ICF. The author presents the advantages of each service changing over to express its fitness/retention standards IAW the ICF in order to communicate fitness standards more effectively when working across service boundaries.