We receive 3 or 4 requests a week for new operation descriptors, many of them for recently described procedures. After lengthy negotiation we have obtained a licence to use the very recently relased revision of OPCS codes-version 4.3. Given the long gestation period of this revision, it contains very few recently described urological procedures-eg there are no codes for photodynamically assisted cystoscopy or TURT. We can only solve this by inventing new codes, with the danger that we invent a code which subsequently is used by OPCS to desribe a different procedure, so each of these requests requires some thought. Please bear with us if you have recently asked for a new operation descriptor. We will be dealing with these requests over the next few weeks. In one sense, codes are unimportant because you search for your procedures by description, not code, but we have to be careful not to create problems for the future. When we add a new procedure, it becomes available at once for users of the web-based logbook. Users of PC/PDA versions will be prommpted to download changes when we issue the next upgrade. We do not issue an upgrade every time we add a procedure, as users would be prompted to down load an upgrade every few days, which is not acceptable. As always, feedback is welcomed.
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