The National Center for Health
Statistics (NCHS) began to develop the Mortality Medical Data System in 1967 to automate
the entry, classification, and retrieval of cause-of-death information reported on death
certificates. Mortality medical data is processed through four basic programs: Super-MICAR
Data Entry, MICAR1, ACME2, and TRANSAX3.
SuperMICAR
Automates the MICAR data entry process. This system is designed as an enhancement of the
earlier PC-MICAR Data Entry System. Super-MICAR is designed to automatically encode cause-of-death
data into numeric entity reference numbers.
MICAR200 Automates the
multiple cause coding rules and assigns ICD codes to each numeric entity reference number.
ACME Automates the
underlying cause-of-death coding rules. The input to ACME is the multiple cause-of-death
codes (ICD) assigned to each entity (e.g., disease condition, accident, or injury) listed
on cause-of-death certifications, preserving the location and order as reported by the
certifier. ACME then applies the World Health Organization (WHO) rules to the ICD codes
and selects an underlying cause of death.
TRANSAX Converts the
ACME output data into fixed format and translates the data into a more desirable
statistical form using the linkage provisions of the ICD. TRANSAX creates the data
necessary for person-based tabulations by translating the axis of classification from an
entity basis to a record basis.
The system
documentation provides information on the use and implementation of each
of the programs in the MMDS software package. Installation
instructions and system manager's information are also included.
This information may be accessed within the programs using the Help
features or as a printable manual from the PDF file provided.
An installation set is provided online along with instructions.
1Mortality Medical Indexing, Classification, and Retrieval 2Automated Classification of Medical Entities 3TRANSlation of Axis