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["Medication, Order": "Pharmacologic Therapy for Hypertension"]

Performance/Reporting Period
2025
Value Set Description from VSAC
Clinical Focus: The purpose of this value set is to represent medications prescribed for the treatment of hypertension.
Data Element Scope: This value set may use a model element related to Medication.
Inclusion Criteria: Includes concepts that describe a medication for treatment of hypertension.
Exclusion Criteria: Excludes concepts that represent branded and non-prescribable drugs.

Constrained to codes in the Pharmacologic Therapy for Hypertension value set (2.16.840.1.113883.3.526.1577)

QDM Datatype and Definition

"Medication, Order"

Data elements that meet criteria using this datatype should document a request to a pharmacy to provide the medication indicated by the QDM category and its corresponding value set.

Timing:

  • relevantPeriod addresses the time referenced in the dosage instruction indicating when the medication administration should start and end.
  • author dateTime references the date and time the medication order (prescription) is authored.

Notes:

  • The medication order (prescription) is unlikely to indicate a relevantPeriod, the time period for which the ordered supply is to be administered/taken including all refills. Therefore, to determine the number of days covered by a single dispensing event, use the daysSupplied attribute and the relevant dateTime of the event to determine when the ordered medication will run out. If daysSupplied is not available, derive it from the supply (quantity of medication ordered) divided by the dosage (amount of medication to be taken at a single administration) times the frequency (number of units per time period – e.g., per day):
    daysSupplied = supply / (dosage x frequency)
    And multiply the daysSupplied per dispensing event multiplied by one plus the number of refills to determine the total daysSupplied ordered.
    daysSupplied x (1 + #refills)
    Starting with the relevant dateTime add the total daysSupplied (including refills) to determine when the ordered medication quantity will run out.
  • negation rationale indicates a one-time documentation of a reason an activity is not performed. Negation of QDM datatype-related actions for a reason always use the author dateTime attribute to reference timing and must not use relevantPeriod.

Refer to Special Cases in Section 4.1.16 for scenarios to consider in calculating cumulative medication duration.

QDM Attributes

authorDateTime

The time the data element was entered into the clinical software. Note, some datatypes include both relevant dateTime and author dateTime attributes. When both are present, author dateTime is included to accommodate negation rationale.

The author dateTime addresses when an activity is documented. Documentation can occur at the beginning, during, at the end, or subsequent to the end of the activity. The author dateTime should be used only if the relevantPeriod cannot be obtained or to represent the time negation rationale is documented.

Note: negation rationale indicates a one-time documentation of a reason an activity is not performed. Negation of QDM datatype related actions for a reason always use the author dateTime attribute to reference timing and must not use relevantPeriod.

negationRationale

Indicates the reason that an action was not performed. Only QDM datatypes that represent actions (e.g., performed, recommended, communication, order, dispensed) allow the negation rationale attribute. The intent is to indicate a justification that such action did not happen as expected. This attribute specifically does not address the presence or absence of information in a clinical record (e.g., documented absence of allergies versus lack of documentation about allergies). QDM assumes a world view that absence of evidence indicates information does not exist or an action did not happen. To express such lack of evidence, an eCQM author should use the CQL expression not exists with reference to the data element rather than the QDM data model. negation rationale in QDM signifies only a reason for such absence, i.e., the reason must be present to qualify for negation rationale. The syntax in the human readable HQMF is addressed in CQL examples and in the MAT User Guide. Prior versions of QDM used the syntax, Procedure, Performed not done. QDM versions starting with 5.3 use the syntax, Procedure, not Performed. Section A-5 provides examples for expressing negation rationale in CQL.

Note: negation rationale indicates a one-time documentation of a reason an activity is not performed. Negation of QDM datatype-related actions for a reason always use the author dateTime attribute to reference timing and must not use relevantPeriod.

For updated guidance and implementer feedback regarding use of the QDM negation rationale attribute see Section 6.6.

Last Updated: Jun 26, 2024