The Andalusian Health Service (SAS) and technology company KEEDIO have completed the development of Smart Medical Codex, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool designed to improve the coding of diagnoses and procedures using the ICD-10 standard — the international disease classification system established by the World Health Organization (WHO). The signing of the commercialisation agreement for this software solution formalises a highly valuable public–private collaboration. The agreement has been managed by the Seville Foundation for Health Research Management (FISEVI) and the SSPA Technology Transfer Office (OTT-SSPA), part of the Progress and Health Foundation.

Clinical coding is the process by which healthcare professionals translate the diagnoses and procedures recorded in each patient’s hospital medical record into standardised alphanumeric codes that are essential for hospital management, healthcare planning and research. It is a labour-intensive and highly specialised task that is currently carried out manually by clinical coding specialists or with less advanced coding systems. Using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, Smart Medical Codex identifies relevant information within clinical texts and automatically suggests the most appropriate ICD-10 codes. The coding specialist then validates or amends these assignments and has access to a wide range of functionalities to ensure accurate and compliant coding. With each interaction, the system learns and improves its accuracy.

Trained on millions of hospital discharge summaries, the tool is designed to support — not replace — clinical coding professionals by facilitating the identification of relevant diagnoses and procedures within large volumes of text. It also provides access to official sources from the Ministry of Health to verify coding recommendations, helping to reduce both inter- and intra-coder variability while preventing the loss of relevant clinical information, particularly in highly complex hospital settings.

The impact of this tool on the Andalusian Public Health System (SSPA) is significant. Smart Medical Codex reduces coding errors and improves the accuracy of hospital clinical data coding, which in turn will enhance healthcare resource management and planning.

The signed agreement represents an example of how a public–private technology co-development model, in which both parties contribute resources and expertise, can generate high-value technological solutions that improve the services delivered to the people of Andalusia.

The project was led by professionals from Virgen del Rocío University Hospital (HUVR) in Seville with key responsibilities in innovation and clinical documentation, including Carlos Luis Parra Calderón, Project Lead and Head of the Technological Innovation Unit; Carlos Álvarez Delgado, former Head of Coding within the Clinical Documentation Department; María del Mar Sánchez Aguilar, Coding Coordinator; and Ana María Díez, Head of the Clinical Documentation Unit. Their collaboration has enabled the tool to be tailored to the real-world needs of coding teams working in a highly complex hospital environment such as Virgen del Rocío.

According to Dr Carlos Parra, “Smart Medical Codex represents a major step forward in supporting the work of clinical coding professionals, improving efficiency and reducing variability in outcomes, which directly enhances the quality of healthcare information and supports more effective health system planning.”

The project originated in October 2021, when FISEVI and the OTT-SSPA, on the one hand, and KEEDIO, on the other, entered into a subcontracting agreement under a Red.es funding programme for research and development projects in artificial intelligence and other digital technologies. Subsequently, in June 2025, the organisations launched a pilot project at Virgen del Rocío University Hospital to validate the tool in a real clinical environment. The results of this pilot led to the commercialisation agreement that has now been signed.

The tool has already begun to be used in real clinical settings, including San Juan de Dios Hospital Aljarafe, where it has delivered excellent results. Following the signing of this agreement, it is expected to be deployed in other public and private hospitals that are already in discussions with KEEDIO.

The solution has been designed to integrate seamlessly with existing Hospital Information Systems (HIS). It complies with European and Spanish data protection regulations (GDPR and LOPD), ensuring the confidentiality of patient information, and has been developed to manage large volumes of clinical data without any loss of performance.

This development demonstrates the SSPA’s commitment to technological innovation aimed at improving healthcare delivery. The research teams at Virgen del Rocío University Hospital, together with KEEDIO’s engineers, have once again demonstrated their ability to lead pioneering projects that place Andalusia at the forefront of the digital transformation of public healthcare.