Final answer:
The ICD code, maintained by the WHO, is used to identify each patient's diagnosis and is a vital element of healthcare documentation seen in medical laboratories and health-care management systems.
Step-by-step explanation:
The code that is used to identify each patient's diagnosis or nature of illness or injury is known as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code. This system, maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), enables healthcare professionals to classify and code all symptoms, injuries, illnesses, and diseases. The ICD code is crucial not only for diagnosis and treatment plans but also for statistical analyses, health care management, and billing and insurance purposes. For example, when a patient with a viral infection comes into a healthcare setting, the ICD code associated with that particular virus ensures that appropriate tests and treatments are ordered and that healthcare management systems verify the correctness of these procedures.
Two locations where one would likely find ICD codes are on medical laboratory requests and in health-care management systems. In medical laboratories, ICD codes help in identifying necessary tests for confirming diagnoses while in health-care management systems, they are instrumental in verifying that all medical procedures and tests are pertinent to the patient's diagnosis.