25 Jan
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has released the draft for the next version of the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) – version 4.
This draft includes data elements that focus on patient care and facilitating patient access while promoting equity, reducing disparities, supporting underserved communities, integrating behavioral health data with primary care, and supporting public health data interoperability.
With the proposed addition of 20 new data elements across one new and eight existing data classes, USCDI v4 has the potential to be even more comprehensive with a total of 112 data elements in 19 data classes.
What’s new in USCDI V4?
Encounter Information: To link data related to an encounter with encounter information, a new element “Encounter Identifier” was added.
Facility information: New data class “Facility Information” was added with three data elements – Facility identifier, Facility type and Facility name to provide details about the facility where care was provided.
Goals: To increase the representation of underserved communities’ preferences, new data elements Treatment Intervention Preference and Care Intervention Preference were added.
Health status assessments: To advance the prioritization of data elements that address behavioral health, three data elements – Alcohol Use, Substance Use, and Physical Activity were added.
Laboratory: To provide patients and providers with more detailed information about laboratory data, new data elements Result Unit of Measure, Result Reference Range, and Result Interpretation were added.
Medication: To improve use and exchange of medication reconciliation data, two new data elements Medication Instructions and Medication Adherence were added.
Procedures: ONC added “Time of Procedure” data element to the Procedures data class As capturing and exchanging the time when procedures are performed is critical.
Vital Signs: Since Average Blood Pressure is recognized as an independent risk factor in many diseases and health conditions, a new data element “Average Blood Pressure” was added.
Also, the names of the following three data classes were modified to provide better clarity regarding their usage:
- Health Status/Assessments to Health Status Assessments
- Assessments and Plan of Treatment to Patient Summary and Plan
- The Unique Device Identifier(s) for a Patient’s Implantable Device(s) to Medical Devices
The draft for USCDI V4 is open for feedback and comments, providing an opportunity for stakeholders to contribute to its finalization before April 17th, 2023.
Aigilx health specializes in developing Interoperability solutions to create a healthcare ecosystem and aids in the delivery of efficient, patient-centric and population-focused healthcare.
