1. Definition
SCL - International Classification of Health Accounts (ICHA) is the Eurostat standard code list for categorising health accounts according to the source of funding, the categories of providers, and the functions of health care services and goods.
2. Objectives
- Provide a standard code list for Classification of Health Accounts
- Improve comparability of health expenditure data across countries and over time
- Used across European Union
3. Owner
OECD developed and maintains International Classification of Health Accounts (ICHA). Eurostat maintains SCL - International Classification of Health Accounts (ICHA).
4. Intended audience
SCL- International Classification of Health Accounts has been developed in order to provide to all persons and organisations that may need to have a classification of health accounts such a tool. The main target was the national statistical agencies or organisations that may need to create statistics on the topic. European organisations are as well targeted because they provide statistics to Eurostat or OECD with this classification.
5. Long description
OECD, in co-operation with experts from OECD member countries, developed the manual “A System of Health Accounts (SHA)”, releasing the initial 1.0 version in 2000. This manual provides a set of comprehensive, consistent and flexible accounts. It establishes a conceptual basis of statistical reporting rules and proposes a newly developed International Classification of Health Accounts (ICHA).
Three categories have been defined in ICHA in order to cover all dimensions of health accounts:
1. Sources of funding (financing agents) (ICHA-HF) - where does the money come from?
2. Categories of providers (health care industries) (ICHA-HP) - where does the money go to?
3. Functions of health care services and goods (ICHA-HC) - what kind of (functionally-defined) services are performed and what types of goods?
(Source: OECD Manual “A System of Health Accounts”: http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/21160591.pdf)
6. Known implementations
Definitions of health expenditure categories and the overall boundary of total health expenditure in the OECD Health Data have been harmonised with the main (one or two-digit level) categories of the International Classification of Health Accounts (ICHA). SCL- International Classification of Health Accounts is used in Europe by the institutions related to Health Accounts, as soon as they provide Eurostat or OECD with statistics on the field.
7. History / Key milestones
The ICHA classification of health care industries, for example, presents a refinement of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC, Rev. 3, United Nations, 1990). Recently designed or revised classifications such as the Central Product Classification, Version 1 (United Nations, 1998a) and the 1998 revision of the SNA 93 functional classifications are referred to in this manual to assist statisticians who shift their national systems to these revised classifications to establish links with the ICHA used in the SHA manual published in 2000.
8. Additional documents
- http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/documents//SCL/icha/icha.zip
- OECD Manual “A System of Health Accounts (SHA)”: http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/21160591.pdf