title: Ensuring quality in the coding process: A key differentiator for the accurate interpretation of safety data.
abstract: Medical coding and dictionaries for clinical trials have seen a wave of change over the past decade where emphasis on more standardized tools for coding and reporting clinical data has taken precedence. Coding personifies the backbone of clinical reporting as safety data reports primarily depend on the coded data. Hence, maintaining an optimum quality of coding is quintessential to the accurate analysis and interpretation of critical clinical data. The perception that medical coding is merely a process of assigning numeric/alphanumeric codes to clinical data needs to be revisited. The significance of quality coding and its impact on clinical reporting has been highlighted in this article.
authors.affiliation: Independent Consultant, Clinical Data Management, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: G Jaya
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Nair
keywords: Clinical trials; MedDRA; World Health Organization Drug; dictionaries; dictionary hierarchies; medical coding; quality; safety signals