Inside Health Care #114: Dr. James Tcheng and the FHIR Side of Hypertension

Quality Matters: A Podcast by NCQA

In this episode of “Inside Health Care,” we talk interoperability with a cardiologist who helped develop a new standard for data records exchange. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, a.k.a. FHIR, can improve efficiencies in use and transfer of electronic health records. It can ease pressure on medical staff while also improving health equity measurement.

In our discussion with Dr. James Tcheng, we focus on the CardX Hypertension Project. CardX, or cardiovascular data exchange, was launched in 2022 by the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Center for Intelligent Heath Care. The project stems from the greater CodeX FHIR Accelerator project. The project seeks to use FHIR as a standard for data transfer and parsing. The project’s stated objective is to “facilitate the communication of hypertension management data between clinicians and patients to increase the proportion of individuals with hypertension who are treated to goal.”

Our guest is Dr. James Tcheng, cardiologist and professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Duke University’s School of Medicine. In addition to his work with patients, his research ranges from developing therapies for cardiovascular disease to use of A.I., I.T., and clinical informatics to improve efficiencies in the delivery of care. I’m pleased to say that Dr. Tcheng will be presenting a session on the CardX FHIR Accelerator at NCQA’s annual Health Innovation Summit, coming October 2023.

Later on in our “Fast Facts” segment, we observe September’s Healthy Aging Month in the U.S. with information about osteoarthritis. We also give a rundown of NCQA’s HEDIS OMW measure, namely Osteoporosis Management in Women Who Had a Fracture. This measure assesses women 67–85 years of age who suffered a fracture and who had either a bone mineral density test or a prescription for a drug to treat osteoporosis in the 6 months after the fracture.