EHR vendor Epic says that with an expanded set of application programming interfaces (APIs), it now fully supports version 3 of the U.S. Core Data Standard for Interoperability, which includes new data classes involving health status and health insurance information.
Epic notes that its release of USCDI v3 comes more than a year ahead of the December 2025 federal requirement to support the new data set.
The USCDI was created to create a foundation for the access, exchange and use of electronic health information to support patient care. The USCDI is also used by federal agencies, hospitals, physician offices, and software developers and is updated annually to keep up with medical, technological, and policy changes.
The USCDI expanded from 52 data elements in 16 data classes in v1 to 94 data elements in 19 data classes in v3.
Epic says its rapid release of USCDI v3 enables healthcare applications to receive important data elements to provide personalized care. These elements include tribal affiliation, disability status, relationships with caregivers, and preferred language. Interventions related to social drivers of health, such as referral to a homeless shelter, can now also be exchanged.
“Reliable access to social drivers of health will make a real difference in people’s lives,” said Mike Pontillo, implementation executive at Epic, in a statement. “As an example use case, a health coach app could proactively connect a patient with a food provider.” data-driven banking or transportation assistance program that the app can now receive.”
Epic also supports the USCDI+Cancer program, which includes data elements to advance cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, research and care.
USCDI is expanding over time as standards mature and requirements evolve. The public participates in the expansion by submitting data classes and data elements for future versions of the USCDI through the ONC New Data Classes and Elements Submission (ONDEC) system.
Future expansions of the APIs available in open.epic will support USCDI v4 and v5. Draft v4 includes data elements that focus on patient care and facilitate patient access while promoting equity, reducing disparities, supporting underserved communities, and integrating behavioral health.
