Epic has introduced new capabilities that version 3 of the United States core data for interoperability. They will be available well over a year in advance of the federally required date of December 2025 to support the new data set.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
USCDI v3’s new data elements – tribal affiliation, disability status, healthcare provider relationships, preferred language and more – are now part of Epic’s suite of application program interfaces, the vendor announced Monday.
Healthcare apps are available for free to developers and can now receive the new data elements aimed at increasing personalized care.
“As an example, a health coaching app could proactively connect a patient to a food bank or transportation assistance program based on data the app can now receive,” Mike Pontillo, implementation manager at Epic, said in a statement.
The APIs to access all USCDI v3 data elements are available in Epic’s online library, which contains more than 700 industry-standard interoperability technologies, according to the EHR vendor.
Epic said its connections supported more than 500 billion data exchanges last year.
THE BIG TREND
The Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Technology completed its final health IT certification rule, revising several program certification criteria and establishing a timeline for increasing the base version of the USCDI from version 1 to version 3 by January 1, 2026.
“The adoption of new and revised standards and criteria in this final rule will facilitate interoperability through standardized health information and functionality, leading to better care and health outcomes for patients while reducing burden and costs,” said ONC (now known as ASTP/ONC) after publication of HTI-1 in the Federal Register.
Although certain data elements such as gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity are included, USCDI v3 does not include demographic values for non-binary gender identification.
Many in the healthcare IT industry took issue with the implementation timeframe to meet various requirements in the information blocking rules, saying there was not enough time to complete the amount of development work needed within the deadlines.
ONC completed USCDI Version 4 this past year and subsequently received more than 60 submissions recommending new data elements and hundreds of comments in the draft USCDI Version 5.
The final version was released in July and added 16 new data elements, including Sex Parameter for Clinical Use, and two new classes, Orders and Observations, according to ONC.
SPCU aims to provide a mechanism for “clinical observations typically associated with the designation of male and female”, allowing the use of “multiple instances of this data element for one individual”.
Future Epic API extensions will support USCDI v4 and v5, the company said
ON THE RECORD
“Reliable access to social enablers of health will make a real difference in people’s lives,” said Pontillo.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.