ehr onc final certification - Department of Health Care Services

Comments. A few commenters asked for clarification as to whether SNOMED-
CT® or ICD-9CM codes needed to be included within Certified EHR Technology or if
these standards were only necessary when electronic health information is exchanged.
Some of these commenters also requested that we permit any coding system to be used as
long as it can be mapped to the appropriate format when electronic health information is
to be exchanged.
Response. As previously discussed, meaningful use requirements will typically
specify whether an adopted standard will have to be used among components of a
business organization or solely for the electronic exchange of health information with
other legal entities. The measure for this final meaningful use objective provides that
entries be recorded as structured data. The certification criterion specifies that ICD-9CM
or SNOMED-CT® are the code sets which must be included in Certified EHR
Technology, and are therefore the code sets that would be used to record entries as
structured data.
Comments. A few commenters recommended the removal of “longitudinal care”
in the certification criterion. These commenters cited our clarification in the preamble
that by longitudinal care we meant “over multiple office visits.” These commenters
questioned how this language would be applicable to an inpatient setting since patients
are typically treated for acute episodes and not over multiple office visits.
Response. The reference to longitudinal care is intended to convey that the
problem list must be comprehensive in the sense that it must be capable of including
entries provided over an extended period of time. Consequently, for Complete EHRs and
EHR Modules to be certified for an ambulatory setting, they will need to be designed to
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