Overview
SICO (Death Certificate Information System) is the mortality information system in Portugal.
The purpose of SICO is to allow the articulation of the entities involved in the death certification process, guaranteeing an adequate use of resources, improvement of quality, accuracy of information and speed of access to data in conditions of security and respect for the privacy of citizens. .
The objectives of this system are:
- The dematerialization of death certificates;
- The statistical treatment of causes of death;
- Updating the National Health Service user database;
- The issuance and electronic transmission of death certificates to the registry offices of the Institute of Registries and Notaries for the purpose of drawing up death certificates.
The Directorate-General for Health is the entity responsible for managing and processing the SICO database and ensures epidemiological surveillance of mortality, identifying risk situations for public health and coding the causes of death according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and health-related problems - 10th revision (ICD-10). The maintenance and development of the computer application to support SICO is ensured by the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health.
SICO was established by Law nº 15/2012 of 3 April.