CMAA Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which federal program offered financial incentives to eligible professionals who adopted and demonstrated meaningful use of certified EHR technology?
- HIPAA Security Rule
- Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs (Correct answer)
- CLIA waiver program
- Stark Law exemption
Correct answer: Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs
The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs (later renamed Promoting Interoperability) provided payments to eligible professionals and hospitals for adopting and meaningfully using certified EHR technology.
Question 2: A patient requests that her demographic information be corrected in the EHR because her last name is misspelled. Under HIPAA, the practice must:
- Deny the request since only clinicians can alter records
- Accept and update the record within 60 days (Correct answer)
- Require the patient to submit the correction in writing with a notarized signature
- Delete the original entry entirely before adding the correction
Correct answer: Accept and update the record within 60 days
HIPAA's Right of Amendment requires covered entities to act on amendment requests within 60 days (with one 30-day extension) and to document both the original and corrected information.
Question 3: Which EHR feature automatically alerts the provider when a prescribed medication may interact dangerously with another drug the patient is already taking?
- Clinical Decision Support (CDS) (Correct answer)
- Patient portal messaging
- Charge capture module
- Release of information tracker
Correct answer: Clinical Decision Support (CDS)
Clinical Decision Support tools embedded in EHRs provide real-time alerts for drug-drug interactions, allergies, and other safety concerns at the point of care.
Question 4: When scanning paper documents into an EHR, which practice best ensures document integrity?
- Scan at the lowest resolution to save storage
- Discard originals immediately after scanning
- Verify the scanned image matches the original before shredding per retention policy (Correct answer)
- Attach scans to any available patient record for speed
Correct answer: Verify the scanned image matches the original before shredding per retention policy
Best practice requires verifying that each scanned image is legible and accurate before disposing of the original according to the organization's retention and destruction policy.
Question 5: What does the term 'interoperability' mean in the context of health information technology?
- The ability of a system to operate without internet access
- The capability of different HIT systems to exchange and use health information seamlessly (Correct answer)
- Encrypting data so only authorized staff can view it
- Converting paper charts to digital format
Correct answer: The capability of different HIT systems to exchange and use health information seamlessly
Interoperability refers to the ability of different EHR and HIT systems to communicate, exchange data, and use that information across organizational and vendor boundaries.
Question 6: A medical administrative assistant notices that a colleague has been accessing patient records for individuals who are not that colleague's assigned patients. The BEST first action is to:
- Warn the colleague directly
- Ignore it since it may be for legitimate training
- Report the observed behavior to the privacy officer or supervisor (Correct answer)
- Immediately revoke the colleague's EHR access
Correct answer: Report the observed behavior to the privacy officer or supervisor
Suspected unauthorized access to PHI should be reported to the privacy officer or supervisor so a proper investigation can be conducted in accordance with the organization's policies.
Question 7: Which of the following is an example of a structured data entry method in an EHR that improves data consistency and searchability?
- Free-text narrative notes
- Drop-down menus with standardized code sets (Correct answer)
- Scanned handwritten forms
- Email messages stored in the chart
Correct answer: Drop-down menus with standardized code sets
Drop-down menus tied to standardized code sets (such as ICD-10 or SNOMED CT) create structured, discrete data that can be queried, reported on, and shared reliably.
CMAA Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology 4
Which federal program offered financial incentives to eligible professionals who adopted and demonstrated meaningful use of certified EHR technology?