ehr onc final certification - Department of Health Care Services

Response. We disagree, as doing so would run counter to our long term goals and
would not help build the foundation necessary for more comprehensive capabilities to be
added in the future.
Comments. A few commenters noted that neither the CCD nor CCR contain an
applicable section for discharge summary. One commenter recommended that because
the provision of an electronic copy of discharge instructions was required by another
certification criterion, that discharge instructions should be removed as an element in this
electronic copy.
Response. We reviewed commenters’ concerns and agree that there is no
applicable section for a discharge summary. Therefore, we have revised this certification
criterion to reflect that while the other data elements can be conveyed using the patient
summary record standards (CCR or CCD), we are not requiring the use of any standards
for the discharge summary section. In order to support the meaningful use objective and
measure, however, we note that we do expect Certified EHR Technology to be capable of
providing a electronic copy of a discharge summary like a patient summary record, in
human readable format and on electronic media or through some other electronic means.
Other electronic means could include, for example, the discharge summary represented as
a CCD plus the "Hospital Course" CDA section or provided as a PDF. We have revised
the certification criterion accordingly.
We note that our responses to the following comments also apply to other
certification criteria that reference procedures.
Comments. A commenter requested clarification as to what we meant by
"procedures" for hospitals, because coding for medical procedures typically occurs after
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