HI300 Unit 5: Standards for Electronic Data and Data Interchange – Discussion

HI300 Unit 5: Standards for Electronic Data and Data Interchange – Discussion

Standard Development Organizations

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Identify and research standard development organizations listed in the text on pp. 165–166. Select one of the organization’s websites and identify at least 3-4 facts about this organization and explain what it does.

Do not duplicate your classmates’ information. Note: You may explore the internet for recent articles about the organization and include this information as well.

When responding to your classmates describe similarities and differences between the organizations you researched.

Discussion responses should be strictly on topic, original with scholar references, and contribute to the quality of the discussion by making frequent informed references to lesson material.

NO PHARGIARISM!!

Below is the Chapter 4 reading for this assignment.

Standards for Electronic Data and Electronic Data Interchange

The original uniform data sets such as the UHDDS and the UACDS were created for use in paper-based (manual) health record systems. They were not designed to accommodate the data needs of the current healthcare delivery system or the demands of EHRs and clinical information systems.

Standards are needed in order for data to be easily, accurately, and securely communicated and exchanged electronically among various computer systems. This is referred to as interoperability. Without standards for interoperability, EHRs and the NHIN will not realize their full benefits (Thompson and Brailer 2004).

Many types of standards are being developed to support the EHR and health information exchange. Some involve defining record structure and content, others specify technical approaches for transmitting data, and still others provide rules for protecting the privacy and security of data.

Public and private organizations have been actively engaged in the process of developing healthcare informatics standards to support EHR development, interoperability, and information exchange. The federal government supports this work in a variety of ways. One example is the S&I Framework. According to Fridsma (2010 slide 4), the Framework “is the mechanism by which ONC will manage the implementation of specifications and the harmonization of existing health IT standards to promote interoperability nationwide.”

Definition of Data Standard for Electronic Data Exchange

Data standards provide the ability to record a certain data item in accordance with the agreed upon standard (Giannangelo 2007). Data content standards are “clear guidelines for the acceptable values for specified data fields” (Fenton et al. 2007). Data exchange standards are protocols that help ensure that data transmitted from one system to another remain comparable.

One of the purposes of HIPAA’s Administrative Simplification rules was to standardize information exchange and in August 2000, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published regulations for electronic transactions. These regulations apply to transactions that occur among healthcare providers and healthcare plans and payers (Rode 2001). The long-term goal of the transaction standards is to allow providers and plans or payers to seamlessly transfer data back and forth with little intervention. To do this, HHS adopted the electronic transaction standards of ASC X12 Insurance Subcommittee (Accredited Standards Committee Health Care Task group [X12N]). The standards adopted for EDI are called ANSI ASC X12N.

The HIPAA standards also include code sets standards for the electronic exchange of health-related information. To illustrate how the adoption and utilization of standards for data representation and data exchange facilitates billing functions, consider the codes sets are data standards used to identify specific data elements such as the diagnosis on a claim. The compendium of data elements on the claim form make up a data set. In order to send the diagnosis and other items that make up the data set electronically, the healthcare provider uses the ASC X12N 837 messaging standard. The 837 specifies the format for each data element. For example, one specification for the format of the diagnosis would be that diagnosis codes have a maximum size of seven (7) characters.

A new version of the standard for electronic healthcare transactions (Version 5010 of the X12 standard) was approved in 2009 and implemented in 2012. This new version is essential to the use of ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes that are slated for implementation in 2013.