Standards and Regulatory Frameworks Workgroup: Environmental Scan

Standards and Regulatory Frameworks Environmental Scan cover

This environmental scan reveals opportunities to evolve standards and regulatory frameworks to advance patient-centered clinical decision support.

Developed by the AHRQ CDSiC Standards and Regulatory Frameworks Workgroup, this environmental scan assesses the current landscape of standards, federal initiatives, and regulatory frameworks for patient-centered clinical decision support (PC CDS) to determine gaps, challenges, and opportunities to advance PC CDS.

January 1, 2023

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Clinical decision support (CDS) standards and regulatory frameworks make it possible for CDS tools to be developed, shared, and implemented in various systems. PC CDS provides innovative ways to ensure patients, caregivers, and care teams have patient-specific, evidence-based clinical guidance to inform healthcare decision making. Consistent standards are essential to ensure PC CDS is accessible wherever and whenever clinicians and patients prefer to receive it, and in a manner that is easy for both groups to understand and act upon in both clinical and non-clinical settings.

About the Scan

The environmental scan includes forty action items for developers, health system leaders, and federal stakeholders to address gaps and challenges in current PC CDS standards related to:

Standards for Translating Clinical Guidelines into PC CDS
Standards for Managing Data Provenance
Patient-Generated Health Data (PGHD) Standards
Standard PC CDS Insertion Points
Standards for Nonclinical Patient-Centered Data
Integration of PGHD into Electronic Health Records
CDS-Focused Application Programming Interfaces
Application Programming Interfaces for Bulk Data Export to Inform Patient-Centered Outcomes Research
Additional Considerations for PC CDS Standards

It also includes a section that describes the Federal landscape that might influence PC CDS development, implementation, and use.

How to Use the Scan

This report provides a comprehensive view of standards and the Federal landscape relevant to PC CDS. Read this report to 1) understand the standards, implementation guides, and initiatives that are supporting or can support PC CDS that is shareable and interoperable and 2) learn about opportunities to advance PC CDS and address current gaps.

Suggested Citation: Dullabh PM, Desai PJ, Gordon JR, Leaphart D, Wilson KS, Richesson RL, Boxwala AA, and the CDSiC Standards and Regulatory Frameworks Workgroup. Standards and Regulatory Frameworks Workgroup: Environmental Scan. Prepared under Contract No. 75Q80120D00018. AHRQ Publication No. 23-0029. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; January 2023.