Data used to categorize individuals for identification, records matching, and other purposes.

Data Element
Deceased Indicator
Description

Indicates if the individual is deceased or not.
Submitted By: Sarah Gaunt / The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL)
Data Element Information
Data Element Description Indicates if the individual is deceased or not.
Rationale for Separate Consideration Date of Death: The Deceased Indicator does not represent the date of death and is a simple boolean statement about whether the individual is alive or dead. A deceased indicator of false is a positive statement that the individual is alive whereas a missing date of death does not make the same positive statement.
Use Case Description(s)
Use Case Description This data element is used in electronic case reporting (eCR) which provides case reports to state, tribal, local, or territorial (STLT) public health agencies (PHA) for reportable diseases and conditions. Submission of reports of persons with these conditions is required by law in every US State and Territory. Public health epidemiologists have identified the data elements necessary to be included in electronic case reports from healthcare organizations and providers. The transition is underway from providing these reports via fax, mail, email, or phone to using data available in the electronic health records to submit reports electronically to all PHAs. Once received at the PHA, this data is use for surveillance, case management and public health response efforts such as contact tracing or other mitigation efforts.

Specific to this data element: Patient follow-up and epidemiological purposes.
Estimate the breadth of applicability of the use case(s) for this data element This data is exchanged as part of the extensive implementation of electronic case reporting (eCR) in the US; eCR is in broad implementation nationwide with thousands of reporting health care organizations.
Link to use case project page https://www.cdc.gov/ecr/index.html; https://ecr.aimsplatform.org/
ONC Priority
  • Address public health interoperability needs of reporting, investigation, and emergency response
Maturity of Use and Technical Specifications for Data Element
Applicable Standard(s) N/A
Additional Specifications HL7 C-CDA - Consolidated CDA Templates for Clinical Notes: US Realm Header
HL7 FHIR® Implementation Guide: US Core Implementation Guide 6.1.0 (based on FHIR R4) - US Realm (https://www.hl7.org/fhir/us/core/StructureDefinition-us-core-patient.html)
Current Use (Level 2) Captured, stored, or accessed in multiple production EHRs or other HIT modules from more than one developer
Extent of exchange (Level 2) Between more than two production EHRs or other HIT modules using available interoperability standards
Supporting Artifacts This data is exchanged as part of the extensive implementation of electronic case reporting (eCR) in the US; eCR is in broad implementation nationwide with thousands of reporting health care organizations.
Potential Challenges
Restrictions on Standardization (e.g. proprietary code) None.
Restrictions on Use (e.g. licensing, user fees) None.
Privacy and Security Concerns None.
Estimate of Overall Burden EHRs routinely collect this information. This data is exchanged as part of the extensive implementation of electronic case reporting (eCR) in the US; eCR is in broad implementation nationwide with thousands of reporting health care organizations.
ASTP Evaluation Details
Each submitted Data Element has been evaluated based on the following criteria. The overall Level classification is a composite of the maturity based on these individual criteria. This information can be used to identify areas that require additional work to raise the overall classification level and consideration for inclusion in future versions of USCDI
Criterion #1
Maturity - Current Standards		 Level 2 - Data element is represented by a terminology standard or SDO-balloted technical specification or implementation guide.
Criterion #2
Maturity - Current Use 		Level 2 - Data element is captured, stored, or accessed in multiple production EHRs or other HIT modules from more than one developer.
Criterion #3
Maturity - Current Exchange		 Level 2 - Data element is electronically exchanged between more than two production EHRs or other HIT modules of different developers using available interoperability standards.
Criterion #4
Use Case(s) - Breadth of Applicability		 Level 2 - Use cases apply to most care settings or specialties.

Comment

Submitted by nedragarrett_CDC on

CDC's comment for proposed inclusion in USCDI v7

National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) includes discharge status as a data element in restricted use data files and public use data files; “deceased” is one of the reported discharge status levels. Inclusion of this data element would improve accuracy of reporting discharge statuses in official federal statistics produced by NHCS data. Also, it would be beneficial to receive mortality data from hospitals

Location of data element in the current HCS CDA IG V1.2: x-path ClinicalDocument/recordTarget/patientRole/patient/sdtc:deceasedInd .

This data element is in C-CDA 4.0. Link in the C-CDA IG - /ClinicalDocument/recordTarget/patientRole/patient/sdtc:deceasedInd. C-CDA Artifact published here:  https://hl7.org/cda/us/ccda/StructureDefinition-USRealmHeader.html

Description of what DHCS currently receives in production: The majority of EHR encounters included discharge status code information in the NHCS. The x-path that is currently used to retrieve this data element for NHCS is encompassingEncounter/dischargeDispositionCode.

Submitted by nedragarrett_CDC on

CDC's Comment for draft USCDI v6

CDC is requesting that the following Level 2 data element be added for consideration to USCDI V6 to inform hospital and ambulatory medical care survey data collection efforts. 

Justification: National Healthcare Surveys includes discharge status as a data element in restricted use data files and public use data files; “deceased” is one of the reported discharge status levels. Inclusion of this data element would improve accuracy of reporting discharge statuses in official federal statistics produced by National Healthcare Surveys data. Also, it would be beneficial to receive mortality data from hospitals.

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