PA EHR IN3

Excerpt from Electronic Heath Record - System Functional Model Release 1, February 2007

Chapter 5: Information Infrastructure Functions

IN.3 (Registry and Directory Services)

Statement: Enable the use of registry services and directories to uniquely identify, locate and supply links for retrieval of information related to:

• patients and providers for healthcare purposes;
• payers, health plans, sponsors, and employers for administrative and financial purposes;
• public health agencies for healthcare purposes, and
• healthcare resources and devices for resource management purposes.

Description: Registry and directory service functions are critical to successfully managing the security, interoperability, and the consistency of the health record data across an EHRS. These services enable the linking of relevant information across multiple information sources within, or external to, an EHR-S for use within an application.

Directories and registries support communication between EHR Systems and may be organized hierarchically or in a federated fashion. For example, a patient being treated by a primary care physician for a chronic condition may become ill while out of town. The new provider’s EHR-S interrogates a local, regional, or national registry to find the patient’s previous records. From the primary care record, a remote EHR-S retrieves relevant information in conformance with applicable patient privacy and confidentiality rules.

An example of local registry usage is an EHR-S application sending a query message to the Hospital Information System to retrieve a patient’s demographic data.

Conformance Criteria:

1. The system SHALL provide the ability to use registry services and directories.
2. The system SHOULD provide the ability to securely use registry services and directories.
3. The system SHALL conform to function IN.5.1 (Interchange Standards) to provide standard data interchange capabilities for using registry services and directories.
4. The system SHOULD communicate with local registry services through standardized interfaces.
5. The system SHOULD communicate with non-local registry services (that is, to registry services that are external to an EHR-S) through standardized interfaces.
6. The system SHOULD provide the ability to use registries or directories to uniquely identify patients for the provision of care.
7. The system SHOULD provide the ability to use registries or directories to uniquely identify providers for the provision of care.
8. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries or directories to retrieve links to relevant healthcare information regarding a patient.
9. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries to supply links to relevant healthcare information regarding a patient.
10. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries or directories to identify payers, health plans, and sponsors for administrative and financial purposes.
11. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries or directories to identify employers for administrative and financial purposes.
12. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries or directories to identify public health agencies for healthcare purposes.
13. The system MAY provide the ability to use registries or directories to identify healthcare resources and devices for resource management purposes.