A hospital stay produces many documents: admission forms, findings, lab results, surgery reports, discharge letters. Some are filled in by hand on paper, others are written on a computer. For the patient record and for exchanging documents with health insurers and other bodies, they all have to be filed in the right place.
What is the KDL?
The Clinical Document Classes List (Klinische Dokumentenklassen-Liste, KDL) is a uniform file plan for medical documents in Germany. It specifies which class each document belongs to, from the admission form to the X-ray report.
The KDL is part of the digitalisation of German healthcare, alongside the Hospital Future Act (KHZG) and the electronic patient record (ePA). Since 1 January 2024, it has been mandatory for transmitting medical documents via the service provider portal (LE-Portal).
How the KDL is structured
The KDL has three levels: 13 classes, 57 subclasses and more than 400 document types. Each document type has a code made up of a two-letter abbreviation, four digits and two more digits.
| Level | Example | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Class | Diagnostics | DG |
| Subclass | Imaging diagnostics | DG0201 |
| Document type | CT report | DG020103 |
| Document type | MRI report | DG020107 |
| Document type | X-ray report | DG020110 |
The 13 classes are: admission, physician documentation, diagnostics, laboratory, pathology, surgery, therapy, progress, special documentation, studies and research, administration, electronic documentation, other.
Hospitals can keep their existing document classes and add the KDL classes as additional metadata.
Why manual sorting no longer works
More than 400 document types are too many to assign reliably by hand. Rule-based software reaches its limits too: every change to the list means maintaining the rules, and many documents look similar but belong to different classes.
How IDA sorts medical documents
IDA first reads every document, machine print with an accuracy of more than 99 % and handwriting with more than 95 %. It then assigns the KDL class.
IDA learns from examples, not from rules. A few examples per class are enough, and new classes can be added at any time. IDA looks at both the text and the layout, so it can also tell apart documents that differ only slightly. More in our blog post on PDF classification.
IDA runs in your own data centre, in a sovereign cloud or hybrid, so patient data does not leave your control. More in our blog post on on-premises or cloud.
Example: a service provider for hospitals
A business process outsourcing provider has been handling documents for healthcare providers for more than 50 years. With the KDL, its file plan grew from around 150 to more than 300 classes. With IDA, the provider adapted to the new classes quickly and reduced manual effort by 80 %, because more documents now go through automatically.
| Before, with the previous solution | With IDA | |
|---|---|---|
| Integration | 240 days | 3 days |
| New document classes | 15 days | 1 day |
| Scan quality required | High | Any |
Frequently asked questions
What does KDL stand for?
Klinische Dokumentenklassen-Liste, the Clinical Document Classes List: the uniform file plan for medical documents in German hospitals.
How many classes does the KDL have?
13 classes, 57 subclasses and more than 400 document types.
Do hospitals have to replace their existing classes?
No. Existing document classes can stay. The KDL classes are added as additional metadata.
Can IDA also read handwritten documents?
Yes. IDA recognises handwriting with an accuracy of more than 95 %, for example in admission forms filled in by patients.
See it with your documents
In a demo, we show you how IDA sorts your medical documents into the KDL classes.