ACTION ALERT: Advocate for Disability as a Demographic in the EHR

Join DEC in urging the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to create a new electronic health record (EHR) data element to record Disability Status as a demographic!

ONC sets the standards for all EHRs in the United States via the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI). EHR vendors are required to build the standard Data Elements in their respective Data Classes that ONC publishes in the USCDI. Currently, USCDI captures “Disability Status” in the “Health Status Assessments” classification, mischaracterizing disability status as a clinician-determined diagnosis.

A person’s disability status is not necessarily reflective of their clinical diagnosis. Like race, ethnicity, and other demographics, it is a patient-reported identity. Therefore, DEC is urging ONC to update the United States’ health IT infrastructure to reflect the lived reality of the disability community by establishing a data element to capture Disability Status under the Patient Demographics/Information data class.

This is critical for healthcare organizations to measure and address health disparities experienced by their patients with disabilities and improve the accessibility of healthcare.

Read our full comment and sign on to support our efforts here: https://forms.gle/Y9eQT5i15NobegKZ6.