Data Strategy Briefing — March 18, 2024
The U.S. Office of the National Coordinator released Draft USCDI v5, expanding interoperability data classes that providers and digital health platforms must prepare to exchange as HTI-1 enforcement nears.
Executive briefing: On 18 March 2024 the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) published Draft Version 5 of the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI), adding new data classes for health equity, laboratory, and administrative datasets. Organisations subject to ONC's HTI-1 certification updates must assess whether payer-to-payer exchanges, prior authorisation workflows, and bulk FHIR exports can support the candidate data elements before the draft is finalised later in 2024.
Key interoperability checkpoints
- Data model coverage. Map draft USCDI v5 data classes (including Social Determinants of Health assessments and health insurance information) against current clinical data warehouses and integration hubs.
- Vocabulary alignment. Confirm terminology services can resolve new laboratory panels, vital sign qualifiers, and condition categories that ONC may require in the final specification.
- Provenance tracking. Strengthen metadata strategies so FHIR resources expose source system, author, and time-stamp details needed for cross-network trust frameworks.
Operational priorities
- Gap assessments with vendors. Engage EHR and interoperability platform partners to review the draft list and obtain delivery timelines for API, schema, and UI updates.
- Pilot synthetic exchanges. Use test environments connected to TEFCA participants to validate data payloads once the draft's comment period closes.
- Policy feedback loops. Coordinate clinical, privacy, and payer stakeholders on comments to ONC before the 17 May 2024 deadline to influence final element selection.
Enablement moves
- Update interoperability steering committees on how Draft v5 intersects with CMS Prior Authorisation final rule timelines.
- Document mitigations for any data elements that cannot be reliably sourced today, framing remediation projects for FY25 budgeting.
Sources
Zeph Tech guides interoperability teams through USCDI gap assessments, terminology remediation, and FHIR payload validation ahead of HTI-1 enforcement.