AHIMA Health IT Systems 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which standard protocol is most commonly used to exchange clinical documents between healthcare systems in the United States?
- DICOM
- HL7 C-CDA (Correct answer)
- X12 EDI
- NCPDP SCRIPT
Correct answer: HL7 C-CDA
HL7 Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) is the primary standard for exchanging clinical documents such as discharge summaries and progress notes.
Question 2: A hospital implements a Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system that fires an alert every time a nurse documents vitals. This is an example of which CDS problem?
- Lack of interoperability
- Alert fatigue (Correct answer)
- Workflow bypass
- Data normalization failure
Correct answer: Alert fatigue
Alert fatigue occurs when excessive or low-specificity alerts cause clinicians to override or ignore warnings, reducing the safety benefit of CDS.
Question 3: Which database model is best suited for storing and querying highly variable, unstructured patient-generated health data from wearables?
- Relational (SQL)
- Hierarchical
- NoSQL document store (Correct answer)
- Network model
Correct answer: NoSQL document store
NoSQL document stores like MongoDB handle schema-flexible, unstructured data efficiently, making them well suited for variable wearable device outputs.
Question 4: Under the ONC's Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), what is the role of a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN)?
- Certify EHR vendors
- Serve as a network-of-networks facilitating nationwide health data exchange (Correct answer)
- Audit hospital billing practices
- Issue National Provider Identifiers
Correct answer: Serve as a network-of-networks facilitating nationwide health data exchange
QHINs act as network-of-networks hubs under TEFCA, enabling seamless health data exchange across participating organizations nationwide.
Question 5: Which FHIR resource is used to represent a patient's active problem list?
- Observation
- Condition (Correct answer)
- Procedure
- DiagnosticReport
Correct answer: Condition
The FHIR Condition resource captures diagnoses, problems, and health concerns that appear on a patient's problem list.
Question 6: A healthcare organization wants to de-identify patient data for research use. Which HIPAA method involves removing 18 specific identifiers?
- Expert determination method
- Safe harbor method (Correct answer)
- Limited data set method
- Statistical disclosure limitation
Correct answer: Safe harbor method
The Safe Harbor method requires removal of all 18 enumerated identifiers specified by HIPAA to create de-identified data.
Question 7: Which system architecture pattern separates data access logic into a distinct layer, making it easier to swap underlying database technologies in a health IT application?
- Service mesh
- Repository pattern (Correct answer)
- Event sourcing
- Publish-subscribe
Correct answer: Repository pattern
The repository pattern abstracts data access behind an interface, allowing the persistence layer to be replaced without changing business logic.
AHIMA Health IT Systems 2
Which standard protocol is most commonly used to exchange clinical documents between healthcare systems in the United States?