Health Occupations Map

What ISCO-08 is

ISCO-08 is the International Standard Classification of Occupations, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO). It groups jobs by the work they involve, and gives each group a four-digit code. Health services use it to compare staff across countries, plan training, and show which roles a standard applies to.

Why codes, not job titles

The same job title can mean different things in different countries. A nurse may need a university degree in one country and a vocational diploma in another. A pharmacist may dispense medicines in one system and mainly supervise a pharmacy in another. For this reason, an organisation should keep its national job title and licence beside the ISCO-08 code. The code makes staff records comparable. The national title keeps them accurate.

How to map a national job title

1. Read the job description: the main tasks, the required education and the licence.
2. Find the ISCO-08 unit group whose main task matches. The tables below list the groups.
3. If two groups seem to fit, choose by the main task, not by seniority or by the job title alone.
4. Record the national title, the licence and the ISCO-08 code together.
5. Review the mapping when the job description or the national law changes.

How Standard 1 uses this list

Standard 1 sets out the staff roles that each criterion needs. Each role in the staff table is linked to a code on this page, so training and documents can be assigned clearly to each role. Roles marked as nearest match have no exact ISCO-08 unit group and need checking before use.

How positions are recorded

HR records each position in the staff register: the job title, the national title, the licence, and the ISCO-08 code. The system then reports staff, training and documents by ISCO-08 code. The same role is therefore reported the same way in every facility and every country, while the national title stays visible for each person.

Group 22: Health professionals

Group 32: Health associate professionals

Group 53: Personal care workers in health services

Non-health roles used in Standard 1

Hospital management, support and administrative roles

Staff who run the hospital around the clinical team. Each needs a defined competence set, the same way clinical roles do.

Ancillary, guest-facing and grounds services

Staff who welcome, guide, help and move people, and who keep the grounds and deliveries running. They touch patients and visitors daily, so each needs a defined competence set.

National example: British Columbia allied health collection

The Government of British Columbia classifies more than 70 allied health disciplines in five groups. The collection below lists them all, with an ISCO-08 code proposed for each one. It shows how a national classification maps to the international one: the BC title stays as it is, and the code makes it comparable with other countries.

A. Regulated allied health professions (23)

Regulated under the Health Professions Act or other BC law. The BC page gives 22 regulated professions; this list has 23 entries, as the source text does.

B. Technical healthcare occupations (25)

Technical roles, including the medical radiation technology specialties. Four of them (medical laboratory technologist, radiation therapist, perfusionist, respiratory therapist) are marked for regulation under the framework modernisation.

C. Clinical assisting occupations (7)

Roles that assist clinical teams under supervision.

D. Social, community and mental health occupations (8)

Roles in social care, counselling and mental health.

E. Therapy and assessment occupations (9)

Therapy, exercise and assessment roles.

Source: BC Government, allied health professions and occupations. Total in this collection: 72 titles.

Sources: codes checked against the IHE ISCO-08 code list and the FHIR ISCO-08 code system. Official reference: ILO, ISCO-08.