ADA comments on United States Core Data for Interoperability+ initiative

Association shares support for improving health care data interoperability

The American Dental Association called for dental-specific data elements in its comments on the United States Core Data for Interoperability+ Data Element List. 
  
The USCDI+ initiative seeks to extend the existing USCDI — a standardized set of health data classes and constituent data for interoperable health information exchange — by supporting the identification and establishment of domain and program-specific data element lists.  
  
The letter, signed by ADA President Linda Edgar, D.D.S., and Raymond Cohlmia, D.D.S., is in response to the Office of the Assistant Technology Policy and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s request for feedback on their USCDI+  draft.  
  
“[The] ADA supports improving health care data interoperability, including improving interoperability across quality programs and establishing a consistent baseline of harmonized data elements for a wide range of quality measurement use cases through USCDI+ Quality,” the letter reads.  
  
In its comments, the ADA noted that the Dental Quality Alliance was established to develop performance measures for oral health care in an effort to advance performance measurement as a means to improve oral health, patient care and safety. The Dental Quality Alliance includes measures that should be part of the USCDI+ initiative to promote interoperability between the dental and the medical world, according to the ADA.  
  
The Association thanked the agencies for creating a “harmonized set of data elements for quality measurement that could support measurement and reporting across many quality programs.” 
  
The letter went on to urge consideration of the required data elements, applicable vocabulary standards and value sets defined in certain Dental Quality Alliance measures. Some of these include coverage period, coverage status, coverage type, date of birth, encounter, encounter time, revenue codes, place of service codes, diagnosis, performer/provider type, procedure, performance time and body site.  
  
To supplement the above list, the ADA offered additional information regarding the Code on Dental Procedures and Nomenclatures as an applicable vocabulary standard for capturing encounter information, universal tooth numbering system, Code on Dental Procedures and Nomenclatures codes in the procedure data class, codes for emergency visits, clinical status and geographic location.  
  
The letter concluded by suggesting that the addition of the data elements, vocabulary standards and value-sets in the commentary may assist with reporting dental and oral health measures named in the Uniform Data System, an annual reporting system that provides standardized information about the performance of health centers delivering services to underserved populations.  
  
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