Introduction

OpenDQM is a cookbook for developers and integration teams who pull clinical data out of electronic health records (EHRs) over FHIR to report digital quality measures (dQMs) — for example MIPS eCQMs.

Every EHR implements FHIR a little differently. Required search parameters, page sizes, how results are coded, which resources are populated at all: none of it is consistent, and much of it is learned the hard way. OpenDQM collects that knowledge in one place.

How the cookbook is organised

• EHRs — one page per EHR: how access works and the behaviours that catch people out.
• Quality measures — how FHIR data becomes measure results, measure by measure.
• Recipes — step-by-step guides for getting a specific piece of measure data out of a specific EHR, such as lab results for a diabetes measure.
• Contributing — how to add a recipe or fix one.

What a recipe is (and is not)

A recipe is a plain-language how-to: which FHIR resources to request, in what order, what to watch for, and how to verify the data is complete. Recipes do not require you to run any code, and they never contain patient data, credentials, or copies of vendor documentation.

Recipes show the date they were last verified. EHR behaviour changes; if a recipe is more than a year old it is flagged so you know to double-check it.