Healthcare Information Systems Flashcards

A practice manager wants to reduce duplicate patient records caused by patients registering at multiple locations. The BEST HIS solution is:

Answer: An Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI)

An EMPI uses probabilistic or deterministic matching algorithms to identify and link patient records across multiple facilities, reducing duplicates.

Which document format is the HIPAA-standard for sharing a patient's clinical summary between care settings?

Answer: HL7 CCD (Continuity of Care Document)

The Continuity of Care Document (CCD) is the HL7/HIPAA standard for summarizing a patient's health record to support transitions of care.

A medical office manager discovers that a staff member has been accessing records of patients who are not on their assigned schedule. Under HIPAA, this is known as:

Answer: Impermissible access / snooping

Snooping — accessing PHI without a valid treatment, payment, or operations reason — is an impermissible HIPAA access violation by a workforce member.

Which reporting tool allows practice administrators to create custom queries against the EHR database without writing SQL code?

Answer: Ad hoc report builder / query wizard

An ad hoc report builder or query wizard gives non-technical administrators a graphical interface to build custom data queries without programming knowledge.

Under the 21st Century Cures Act information blocking rule, which of the following actions by a healthcare provider constitutes information blocking?

Answer: Refusing to share EHI with a patient's requested app through APIs without a valid exception

The information blocking rule prohibits practices that unreasonably restrict the flow of electronic health information (EHI), including refusing API-based patient access without a valid exception.

In population health management using an HIS, 'risk stratification' is best described as:

Answer: Categorizing patients by their likelihood of adverse health outcomes to prioritize interventions

Risk stratification uses clinical and claims data to identify patients most likely to deteriorate or incur high costs, enabling targeted care management.

Which of the following best describes the role of an interface engine in a healthcare information system environment?

Answer: It translates and routes messages between disparate clinical systems using standards like HL7

An interface engine (integration engine) transforms and routes data messages — often in HL7 format — between systems that otherwise cannot communicate directly.