ONC Publishes Draft USCDI v5 to Drive Health Data Interoperability

ONC has released United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) Draft Version 5, which includes new data elements aimed at driving health data exchange to reduce health disparities and improve patient care.  

USCDI is a standardized set of data elements for national health information exchange (HIE). USCDI establishes a baseline set of data that can be exchanged across care settings for a variety of use cases. ONC updates the standard annually to stay up to date on policy, technology, and clinical changes across the industry.

The agency expands USCDI based on public proposals for new data classes and data elements submitted through the ONC New Data Element and Class (ONDEC) submission system. ONC also invites feedback on whether previously submitted data elements should be included in future versions of USCDI.

During the USCDI v5 submission cycle, ONC received more than 60 submissions suggesting new data elements, as well as over 330 comments on previously submitted data elements.

Based on these suggestions, ONC proposed two new data classes in Draft USCDI v5: Observations and Orders.

The Observations data class includes two data elements:

• The Advance Directive Observation data element would outline information about advance directive documents, including their existence, location, content, and validity.
• The Sex Parameter for Clinical Use data element would provide sex-specific context to observations, tests, procedures, and results.

The second new data class, Orders, would convey a provider’s intent to treat a patient.

Additionally, Draft USCDI v5 proposed the following new data elements classes within existing data classes:

• Emergency Department Note and Operative Note (Clinical Notes Data Class)
• Lot Number (Immunizations Data Class)
• Test Kit Unique Device Identifier (Laboratory Data Class)
• Route (Medications Data Class)
• Interpreter Needed, Pronoun, and Name to Use (Patient Demographics/Information Data Class)
• Author and Author Role (Provenance Data Class)

Draft USCDI v5 is available for public feedback until April 15, 2024, at 11:59 pm ET. ONC expects to release the final USCDI v5 in July 2024.