Add Your Local Public Health Voice to the Future of Health Data: USCDI v6 Feedback Period Extended
Apr 29, 2025 | Gelilawit Tamrat
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MyNACCHO LoginWhat is USCDI?
Established by the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP), formerly known as the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) is a standardized set of health data classes and elements designed to improve nationwide health information exchange across various systems. USCDI creates a baseline set of data that can be exchanged across different care settings for a wide range of uses.
USCDI is guided by a set of three principles:
Providing a core set of structured and unstructured data needed to support patient care and enable patient access using health IT
Creating a standard set of harmonized data elements that can be broadly used across use cases, including those outside of patient care and patient access
Expanding through a predictable, transparent, and collaborative process that considers benefits and industry impacts
Key Components of USCDI
Data classes and elements are key components of USCDI, providing groupings and granular level information needed for health data exchange.
- Data Class: an aggregation of various data elements by a common theme or use case.
- Data Elements: the most granular level at which a piece of data is represented in the USCDI for access, exchange, or use of electronic health information.
The following chart provides an example of how data classes are connected to a set of elements.
Other examples of data classes include immunizations and medications, which can be linked to data elements of vaccine administration records, and pharmacologic agents, respectively.
Why USCDI Matters
USCDI plays a crucial role in establishing a baseline set of care-related data that can be exchanged across various settings. In doing so, it:
- Advances interoperability – USCDI replaces the previously used Common Clinical Data Set (CCDS) definition and provides a common dataset, ensuring a standardized data exchange between health IT systems, enhancing communication.
- Improves Patient Care Coordination– Through the use of common data sets, USCDI enables providers to access critical information and coordinate care more effectively, regardless of their location.
- Supports Public Health – USCDI can facilitate data sharing for public health reporting, reducing reporting burden on providers.
- Meets Compliance Requirement – While its adoption was established in the 21st Century Cures Act Rule, compliance to USCDI is required for Health IT vendors seeking certification through ONC/ASTP. Currently, the ONC/ASTP Health IT Certification Program has adopted USCDI v3 as the new baseline while the use of USCDI v1 is set to expire on January 1, 2026.
USCDI’s Evolution Over Time
USCDI is updated annually to reflect the continuous advancements in health information technology and the evolving needs of the healthcare environment. Each iteration introduces new data classes and elements, ensuring that the dataset remains comprehensive and relevant.
The journey of USCDI began with its first version in 2020, which established an initial set of standardized data classes. Each subsequent version has built upon this foundation, incorporating feedback from various stakeholders such as healthcare providers, health IT vendors, public health etc., across the healthcare ecosystem. Draft versions of USCDI are typically released in January, open for public comment through April, and finalized in July. This iterative process ensures that USCDI remains aligned with technological advancements and clinical practices.
Recently, USCDI has also expanded to USCDI+ which was created as an extension of the existing USCDI to meet specific programmatic and use case requirements. USCDI+ has various domains including Public Heath, Quality, Cancer, Behavioral Health, and Maternal Health. An example of how organizations are using USCDI+ includes the use of the Uniform Data System (UDS+) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to reduce health centers’ reporting burden and improve the availability of data, while aligning to federal data standards.
Since 2020, five versions of USCDI data classes and elements have been published.
The draft for USCDI v6, which proposes expanding various data classes, is currently available on the USCDI website and is open to public comments through May 12, 2025, 11:59 pm ET.
NACCHO encourages public health professionals and partners to review and provide comments on this important initiative that will impact health data exchange for public health.
For more information on the new data classes and elements added to the draft version 6, please visit ASTP’s Standards Bulletin 2025-1. To review the various versions of USCDI, please see the links below.
USCDI v1 released in 2020
USCDI v2 released in 2021
USCDI v3 released in 2022
USCDI v4 released in 2023
USCDI v5 released in 2024
To learn more about USCDI, please visit the USCDI webpage here.
Have questions about USCDI? Submit questions here.
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