Briefly describe the need for data coding standards and how they have been applied in the healthcare industry. (~100 words)
Data coding standards enable data exchange between health care institutions, electronic health records (EHR), as well as the broader health care community. Further improvements in the quality of health care, fast identification of diseases, better cost optimizations, and a system of response against global spread of diseases such as Zika or Ebola, all have one thing in common: they require the use of data standards. Since the inception of organized health care systems in the middle of 20th century, there have been created multiple standards, both in the US and internationally but not all of them are widely used or without errors. In times when computers play still larger role in organizing as well as delivering health care, the need for universally adopted standards is higher than ever.

Benefits of coding standards

For example, how data standards are used with EHR interoperability, clinical health research, etc. (~100 word).
Unified coding standards used in electronic health records improve the speed of identification of the right treatment, which can both save lives and optimize costs.
Another area that benefits from using standards is big data analytics. There is a saying in the data analytics community that you can only get as good insights as the data you put in. Having correct and unified data can therefore lead to better analytics, which can reveal opportunities for optimalization. For example, the University of Michigan Health System standardized the administration of blood transfusions [...]. This resulted in a 31% reduction in transfusions and $200,000 reduction in expenses per month. \cite{Raghupathi_2014}

Pitfalls of coding standards

(~100 words)
Adopting data standards usually comes with a few extra hurdles. According to a survey by Physicians Practice \cite{practice}, the biggest challenge of the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 was training staff/physicians on the new codes (38.5%), followed by working with the EHR and other vendors (19.3%). Almost half (46.6%) of the responses indicated they required extra time in their daily work flow to familiarize with the new data set.

Coding standards

Next, research any three (3) of the following coding standards and describe how they are used in healthcare, the benefit they provide, and an update as to their current usage and future changes. (~400 words total for your discussion of three of these standards: ICD, CPT, LOINC, SNOMED and NDC)

ICD

ICD, or the Internation Classification of Diseases, is a global system maintained by the World Health Organization. The history of ICD goes back to the 18th century. On October 1, 2015, after years of discussions and proposals, the 10th revision was released as ICD-10 \cite{nokey_e68f5}. ICD is widely used for classification of diseases and treatments, and for the purposes of billing by insurance companies.

SNOMED

SNOMED CT is a system of multi-lingual clinical health terminology, maintained by SNOMED International, a non-profit organization based in London. Currently used in over 50 countries, SNOMED helps patient care by enabling relevant clinical information to be recorded in EHRs using consistent representations, as well as providing broader insights to the health community such as monitoring of population health \cite{ct}.

LOINC

LOINC is a standard for identifying health measurements and medical observations. It is used across the world in reference labs, healthcare organizations and insurance companies, either by searching the database online, or through RELMA, a Windows-only desktop application. The database is updated twice a year \cite{basics}.

Areas of opportunity

This may include a lack of coding standards, misuse of coding standards, or a better way to utilize existing or new coding standards (~100 words).
The introduction of ICD-10 brought a large set of challenges. Clinicians are concerned that, after the deadline, they will need to learn and remember roughly five times more concepts in order to properly code their cases and avoid reimbursement delays \cite{Cartagena_2015}. As showed in the study, creating a system that better integrates individual data standards can improve data correctness and reduce time physicians need to spend on finding the right classification.