The download and the use of the Iris software is free, there are no licences. Except: You have to accept the download condition at the time of the download.

In ancient Greek mythology, Iris is the goddess of the rainbow and the gods’ messenger. The rainbow is the bridge that Iris travels when carrying messages from the gods to humans. It is also her duty to fetch water from Styx, the river that separates the realm of the living from the realm of the dead, whenever the gods take a solemn oath. Any god that tries to cheat will fall asleep when drinking the water, and stay asleep for a year.

We chose the name of Iris for our software because of the associations with message-bearing and bridging. The aim was to develop a common mortality coding system that could be used for coding death certificates in any language. In that sense it constitutes a bridge between the language, which is local, and the ICD mortality coding instructions, which are international. The association with the river Styx is a further bonus - and it is also the name of a previous coding software developed in France, which has now been replaced by Iris.

In the logo the rainbow is indicated by the curved lines. There are 5 lines representing the 5 countries that founded the Iris Institute.

Yes, there are interfaces in: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Apart from the existing adaptations the Iris interface can be translated in any language.

You can create your own dictionary and standardizations in your language or you ask other countries if there is a dictionary available in your language.

You can subscribe to our newsletter to receive all relevant information on Iris, including updates.

No, fields like firstTime, EntryLevel, PswEntryOnly, PswCoder, PswHyper, PswAdmin and UserRights in the config file are not related to the maintenance password. They are used for specific adaptations of Iris.

Yes. To change the maintenance password, the user needs the present password (see Iris Reference Guide). If he knows this password, he can change it.

You can use Iris under these systems:

• Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
• Microsoft .Net Framework (since 4.5.2)
• Microsoft Access 2003 or later, if no other database manager is available (it is not possible to use "Apache Open Office" database)
• or a robust relational database server like Oracle, MSSQL, PostgreSQL or MySQL directly
• or any through OLEDB, parameters described on Connection Strings Reference

Iris is independent of your browser and you can use Iris in a server environment for multiple users.

No, that is not possible. All users should use the application in the same way.

The Iris Institute no longer supports Iris versions older than version 5. The updated tables in Iris version 5 can no longer be handled by MMDS.

The structure of the unicausal tables has changed a little bit:

SENMC rule is replaced by IDMC and SENDC rule is replaced by IDDC in Iris version 5. IDMC is a new rule and it cannot be handled by MMDS. We also deleted all obsolete codes in the unicausal tables. Therefore the TABA and TABB would not work in the right way and it is not possible to produce MMDS tables for these technical reasons.

In addition, the ICD-10 updates for 2016 involve some algorithm changes which are implemented in MUSE, but not in MMDS. So the new tables and the new rules for selection of the underlying cause will not be applied in MMDS.

Please find more information about the unicausal rules at the Iris Reference Guide.