Symposium on the Future of Disease Classification in the United States

March 23 - 24, 2026

Hopkins Bloomberg Center
555 Pennsylvania Ave NW,
Washington, DC 20001

Who Should Attend

Researchers, clinicians, health system administrators, quality and safety improvement professionals, purchasers and payers of health care, public agencies, and electronic health record vendors and application developers.

Why Attend

The US morbidity coding system has served the nation for over a decade since the ICD-10-CM implementation. Attendees will explore advances in AI, automation, and interoperability to examine whether our disease classification systems are optimally positioned for the future.

This symposium offers an opportunity to connect with experts and stakeholders interested in the clinical utility, public health value, technical feasibility, and implementation realities to:

  • Explore how AI and automation can reduce clinician burden and improve outcomes

  • Learn from the lessons of ICD-10-CM implementation in the United States and from ICD-11 implementation experience internationally

  • Contribute to research priorities informing the future of disease classification

Agenda

The Symposium Planning Committee is pleased to present the agenda below and welcomes all of our speakers.

March 23, 2026 (Eastern Time)

  • Sponsored by Johns Hopkins University

  • The Future of Large-Scale Clinical Data for Real-World Analytics: From fully-specified diagnostic sentences to computable data

    Over the past decade, the emergence of large-scale electronic medical records has enabled an unprecedented opportunity for longitudinal analysis of clinical events from real-world data. However, historical mechanisms for encoding such data into classifications impoverishes detailed analytics. New strategies for the systematic capture of clinical concepts, findings, diagnoses, and outcomes promise to address these historical shortcomings, enabling comprehensive clinical characterization that can support high-throughput data science.

    Keynote Speaker

    • Christopher G. Chute, Johns Hopkins University

  • Examining what current clinical classifications can and cannot do with discussion of emergent classification and terminology solutions for more complete capture of clinical information.

    Speakers:

    • Susan H. Fenton, McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston

    • June Bronnert, Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO)

    • Sue Bowman, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)

    • Vickie M. Mays, University of California, Los Angeles

  • Detailed Rendering of Disease Classification: Opportunities to align and integrate precision-medicine based classifications encoded in biomedical ontologies and real-world data within the framework of the ICD

    Speakers:

    • Melissa Haendel, UNC School of Medicine, Department of Genetics

    • Ada Hamosh, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, McKusick-Nathans Department of Genetic Medicine

    • Peter Fish, Mendelian

    • Bradford Powell, UNC School of Medicine, Department of Genetics

  • Sponsored by AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association)

  • The Foundation of the ICD-11: Development, enrichment, maintenance and curation

    Chair: Geoffrey M. Reed, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

    Speakers:

    • James T. Case, SNOMED International

    • Christopher G. Chute, Johns Hopkins University

    • Michael B. First, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Overviewing the opportunities, methodologies, and feasibility, of AI assisted coding of clinical records into post-coordinated expressions with classifications enriched with clinical terminology detail.

    Moderator: Christopher G. Chute, Johns Hopkins University

    Speakers:

    • Ahmed Hassoon, Johns Hopkins University

    • Paul Nagy, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

    • Zheyu Wang, Johns Hopkins University

    • Tanner Zhang, Johns Hopkins University

  • Speakers:

    • Patrick S. Romano, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine

  • Sponsored by AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association)

  • Sponsored by AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association)

  • In this session, the opportunities, challenges, and issues to be considered in order for U.S. policymakers to decide if a national linearization of ICD-11 should be developed will be discussed.

    Moderator: Sue Bowman, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)

    Panelists:

    • June Bronnert, Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO)

    • Denene Harper, American Hospital Association (AHA)

  • In this session, provider organizations and EHR vendors will discuss the needs of future classification systems and the opportunities and challenges to the potential transition to ICD-11, such as transition costs, education and training requirements, technology advancements, and its ability to better serve patients, clinicians, and population health.

    Moderator: Valerie Watzlaf, University of Pittsburgh

    Panelists:

    • Michelle Badore, Solventum

    • Amol Bhalla, Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO)

    • Veena Dawar, Oracle Health

    • David Hoyt, Epic

    • Jackie King, ArchPro Coding and Consulting

    • Tammy Love, American Hospital Association (AHA)

  • From reactors to roadmap.

    Speakers:

    • Patrick S. Romano, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine

  • Speakers:

    • Sue Bowman, AHIMA

    • Valerie Watzlaf, University of Pittsburgh

  • Sponsored by Johns Hopkins University

March 24, 2026 (Eastern Time)

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