CRVS tools
Medical certificate of cause of death and assessment tool
The cause (or causes) of death listed on the medical certificate of cause of death are coded and consolidated into national vital statistics. These codes are consolidated into national vital statistics on leading causes of death, used by governments to determine health priorities and evaluate the impact of health programs. It is important that this information on the leading causes of death are accurate. The MCCOD assessment tool is designed to assess the quality of death certification practices through checking for common errors in medical certificates of death.
The MCCOD assessment tool is a simple form that is used to assess individually each medical certificate of cause of death. It checks whether appropriate fields are filled in correctly including sections on the certificate details, details about the deceased, and checks for nine common errors and omissions of information related to the cause of death. It checks if the correct underlying cause of death is identified given the available information on the form, but does not check the validity of the ICD coding. For ICD code checks, see the Iris and ANACONDA tools.
This tool can be used to assess the quality of medical certification of death as part of routine assessment, or to assess the training needs of physicians and clinicians in designing cause of death certification training. It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of death certification training.
Assessing the quality of death certificates: Guidance for the rapid tool
This document provides guidance on how to use the rapid assessment tool. Information generated from the assessment would be helpful for ministry of health staff, hospital administrators, health information officers or medical record officers to determine the quality of death certificates. The tool can be used by a doctor who is trained in death certification practices and understands the ICD-10 death certification rules.
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Authors: Rampatige R, Gamage S, Richards N, Riley I, Wijesekera N.
Publication date: February 2019 (update)
Resource type: CRVS resources and tools
Related resources: Assessing the quality of death certificates: Rapid tool
Assessing the quality of death certificates: Rapid tool - Russian version (Оценка качества свидетельств о смерти: инструмент экспресс-оценки)
This tool is designed to assess the quality of death certification practices by checking for common errors in death certificates.
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Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: July 2019
Resource type: CRVS resources and tools
Related resources: Assessing the quality of death certificates: Guidance for the rapid tool
Handbook for doctors on cause of death certification
These are generic guidelines about how to certify the cause of death, written for physicians and medical students, particularly in developing countries.
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Author: University of Melbourne
Publication date: September 2019 (update)
Resource type: CRVS resources and tools
Related resources: Medical certification of cause of death: Quick reference guide
Medical certification of cause of death: Quick reference guide
This guide contains basic information about how to correctly complete the International Form of medical certificate of COD, as recommended by the WHO.
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Publication date: September 2019
Resource type: CRVS resources and tools
Related resources: Intervention: Medical certification of cause of death