Building an Inventory of Assets for Your ICD-10 Assessment and Other Projects

One of the first steps to take in your ICD-10 assessment project is to create a laundry list of the business-related assets that are potentially impacted by ICD-10 and gather some key attributes for each item on the list. Identifying these core assets and collecting their attributes is a critical foundational component for driving and sustaining the gap, impact and SWOT analyses required to kick start your ICD-10 project and improve the chances of a timely and successful outcome.

Additionally, with a little extra planning and by expending some additional effort as you progress through your ICD-10 project, you can collect some additional information to address not only your ICD-10 project but also other projects undertaken in the future.  The following is a list of information to consider when building an inventory of your business assets:

Note: Many of these attributes are typically collected for other purposes like configuration management and application portfolio management projects and may exist in some form to facilitate your initial efforts.

General Information – Regardless of Potential ICD-10 Impact

Attribute	Description	Sample Values
Major asset category		Business Process, Reporting, Software/System, Training
Business Domain	What is the business domain in which this artifact is used?	Actuarial, Claims, Configuration, Customer Service, Fraud & Abuse, Finance, Care Management, Pharmacy, EDI, Member/Provider Appeals, Contracts, Legal, Marketing, Medicare, Membership, OPL, Underwriting, Data mart, Other
Artifact Common Name	What is the most commonly used name for this asset?
Criticality	How critical is this artifact to the day to day operation of the business?	Minor, Medium, Great
Artifact Alias or AKA’s	What short names are used to refer to this asset? Are there any variances by end user?
Artifact Acronym(s)	What acronyms are used to refer to this asset?
Type of Component	What type of asset classification?	Datastore, Interface, COTS, Function, User interface, Report, Batch process, MS Office file, Export, Process, Subscription, Tool, Staff
Assessment Area	What is the primary assessment area?	Data Conversion, Interfaces, Letters & Collateral, New Hardware, COTS products, Data products, Vendor, Data Stores,
Artifact Owner	Who is the person most knowledgeable about the location and value of this specific asset?
Primary Business Contact	Who makes primary decisions regarding the asset?
Business SME	Who is the business process owner?
Technical SME	Who is the person with the most knowledge of the technical nature of this asset?
Complexity	What is a general level of complexity for this asset?	Simple, Low, Medium, High
Stability	How stable is this asset? How often does it require attention and support?	None, Low, Medium, High, Pain in the Ass
Source of Asset Information	Where was the information for this asset obtained?	Assessment Process, Business Unit, Data Models, Vendor Documentation, report inventory, Technical Documentation, User Guide,

ICD-10 Specific Attributes

Attribute	Description	Sample Values
ICD-10 Element Type	What type of diagnosis-related element is involved?	ICD-10 Diag, ICD-10 PCS, DRG, HCC, Case Rates, etc.
Component Impacted	What portion of the asset is impacted?	Documentation, User Interface, DB Schema, Interface, Logic, Data Mapping
Remediation Effort	What type of effort is involved?	Remediate, Migrate to Other, Unknown, Retire, No remediation required, Configuration, Test
Responsible for Remediation	Who owns responsibility for remediation?	Internal or External
Remediation Priority	What is the priority for remediating this asset?	Low, Medium, High, Urgent
Estimated Remediation Complexity	How complex is the remediation approach?	Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Extreme, Unknown
Remediation Owner	Who is responsible for remediating the asset?	IT, User/Dept, Vendor, Other, Unknown
Impact Level to Other Assets	What impact or dependency does this asset have on remediation of other assets?	None, Minor, Medium, High
Estimated Effort Size	What is the estimate size of the remediation effort?	Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge
Dual Use Required?	Does the remediation approach require ability to support dual usage?
Needed by Date	When is the asset required to be remediated?	During run-up to cut-over date, On Cut-over Date,

Technical Information – Regardless of Potential ICD-10 Impact

Attribute	Description	Sample Values
Platform	What type of hardware and operating system?	Mainframe, Unix, Windows, Hosted,
Language	What is the primary language used in this asset?	Java, COBOL, C/C++/C#,
File Type	What type of file system(s) does the asset utilize?	Database, flat file, MS Office, paper, etc.
Database Type	For assets using a database system, what database platform is used?	Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, Access
Software Version	What is the most current version in use and what is the next logical version?

Vendor & Miscellaneous Information

Attribute	Description	Sample Values
Vendor Name	Name of the Vendor
Vendor Service Category	What type of “product” does the vendor provide?	Licensed COTS Software, Licensed Custom Software, Hosted Software, Trading Partner, Service
Vendor Contact	Primary Contact at Vendor
Licensing Information	What are key licensing terms?
Annual Maintenance Contract	Is the application covered under an annual maintenance contract?
Renewal Date	When is the license/maintenance contract up for renewal?
Is Source Code Available?	Can usable source code be obtained if necessary?
Is Technical Documentation Available?	Is current technical documentation available?
Is User Documentation Available?	Is current user documentation available?
Age of App	How long has this application been used?
End of Life Target Date	When might this particular application be retired?
Next Major Upgrade Date	What is the next major software version upgrade planned?
# of local users	Number of local users
# of WAN users	Number of users on WAN
Est # of Interfaces	Number of interfaces
Est # Lines of Code	Metric to estimate size of the software