According to ABC news, the medical world will undergo a large revision of its coding system, used to keep records of patient visits and insurance claims. Use of the new system will begin on October 1. Under the current system, US health providers have to make use of a large system of an estimated 14,000 different codes in order to designate a diagnosis for repayment purpose.

The new, updated system is comprised of nearly 68,000 codes. Essentially, the codes system is an expanded dictionary that will be capable of storing a great deal more of the information from the chart of a patient.

According to government officials, this change, which many professionals feel is long overdue, should assist health officials in improving the methods by which they track the quality of care, recognize early signs of an outbreak, or search for trends of an illness or injury. The ICD-10, which is the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases, will have its own unique codes designed to indicate new strains of flu, as well as Ebola and its related viruses.

Additionally, since sports concussions have been receiving more attention recently, the newly updated codes will be able to reveal the duration of a patient’s loss of consciousness, and whether they require regular care.