CPMS Healthcare Data Management & Interoperability 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In the context of healthcare data warehousing, what is a 'slowly changing dimension' (SCD) Type 2?
- Maintaining full history by adding a new row for each change (Correct answer)
- Overwriting the existing record with new values
- Storing both old and new values in the same row
- Ignoring historical changes and keeping only current values
Correct answer: Maintaining full history by adding a new row for each change
SCD Type 2 preserves historical data by inserting a new row each time an attribute changes, with effective dates to track when each version was valid.
Question 2: Which SNOMED CT concept hierarchy would be used to represent a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes mellitus?
- Clinical finding (Correct answer)
- Procedure
- Observable entity
- Pharmaceutical / biologic product
Correct answer: Clinical finding
Diagnoses and conditions are represented under the 'Clinical finding' hierarchy in SNOMED CT.
Question 3: A software developer is implementing a FHIR server. Which response code should be returned when a client requests a resource that does not exist?
- 404 Not Found (Correct answer)
- 400 Bad Request
- 422 Unprocessable Entity
- 410 Gone
Correct answer: 404 Not Found
HTTP 404 Not Found is returned when the requested FHIR resource does not exist on the server.
Question 4: What is the primary purpose of the LOINC code system in healthcare interoperability?
- To provide universal identifiers for laboratory and clinical observations (Correct answer)
- To classify diseases and health conditions for billing
- To represent medications and their clinical properties
- To standardize surgical procedure codes
Correct answer: To provide universal identifiers for laboratory and clinical observations
LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes) provides a universal standard for identifying clinical measurements, observations, and documents.
Question 5: Under the 21st Century Cures Act information blocking rule, which of the following IS a permitted exception to sharing electronic health information?
- Preventing harm to the patient or another person (Correct answer)
- Avoiding financial cost of API development
- Competitive business interests of the health system
- Lack of patient consent for any data sharing
Correct answer: Preventing harm to the patient or another person
The 'Preventing Harm' exception permits information blocking when sharing could result in physical harm to the patient or another individual.
Question 6: In healthcare data exchange, what is the role of a 'terminology server' such as a FHIR Terminology Service?
- To validate and translate coded clinical terms across code systems (Correct answer)
- To authenticate users accessing clinical applications
- To store and retrieve patient demographic information
- To route HL7 messages between hospital systems
Correct answer: To validate and translate coded clinical terms across code systems
A FHIR Terminology Service provides operations like $validate-code, $lookup, and $translate to manage and convert coded clinical data across standards.
Question 7: Which architectural pattern describes a centralized repository where documents from multiple care settings are stored and retrieved by patient identifier?
- Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) affinity domain (Correct answer)
- FHIR subscription channel
- HL7 V2 message broker
- Direct messaging network
Correct answer: Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) affinity domain
An XDS affinity domain is a federated community of care organizations sharing a centralized registry and repository for patient documents.
CPMS Healthcare Data Management & Interoperability 4
In the context of healthcare data warehousing, what is a 'slowly changing dimension' (SCD) Type 2?