20 questions with ONC

Mary Stevens, Editor Image source: TriMed Media Group

The Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT has released 20 questions and answers in hopes of alleviating some of the confusion surrounding meaningful use of EHRs. The organization chose to answer questions that are indeed frequently asked at presentations, in offices and in conference rooms.

Below is a sampling of these answers about standards and exchange:

Question: I plan on sending/transferring meaningful use quality reporting data from my EHR technology to my data warehouse and have the data warehouse submit/report out the data to CMS. Does my data warehouse need to be certified?

ONC: Yes, if you plan to use your data warehouse to submit calculated clinical quality measures to CMS or states for meaningful use, your data warehouse would need to be certified in order for you to meet the definition of Certified EHR Technology ... [Your] data warehouse would be performing a capability for which the Secretary has adopted a certification criterion [and] for which you as an eligible health care provider have a correlated meaningful use requirement to satisfy.

Question: I use or would like to use an interface to submit data to a public health agency/registry. Does this interface need to be certified?

ONC: It depends. The term "interface" has different meanings depending on the context in which it is used, the IT infrastructure of which it is a part, and the capability it performs. Consequently, depending on various factors, an interface may or may not need to be certified.

• [It does not need to be certified] if the interface provides a user with the ability to directly enter data to the public health agency/registry.
• If the interface would be serving solely as a conduit between your EHR technology and the public health agency/registry and providing the underlying communication protocol to transport data from point A to point B, it would not need to be certified.
• If, however, the interface were to perform a capability specified in an adopted certification criterion and the interface was intended to satisfy a correlated meaningful use requirement, it would need to be certified [because] you are required to use Certified EHR Technology to qualify for your respective EHR incentive program. As an example, if the interface was intended to provide the capability of electronically recording, modifying, retrieving and submitting immunization information in a standardized format ... it would need to be certified

There are thousands of unanswered questions that need to be answered and plenty more will emerge as the meaningful use saga unfolds. ONC has a lot more explaining to do. In the meantime, the most recent FAQ list is here to help.

Mary Stevens, Editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com