Can lab results be scanned into the EHR and be acceptable for structured data and submission for public health reporting (ELR)?

Please reference the question/answer regarding structure or discrete format for more information on Evident compliance with the Meaningful Use objective requirements associated with Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR). Scanned documents are blurbs of text that cannot be parsed and therefore do not meet the requirements and are not included in the Thrive transmissions for public health reporting.

From Section 170 page 44602 of 45 CFR, the ONC final rule page:

“We recognize that Certified EHR Technology may also store health information in scanned documents, images, and other non-interoperable non-computable formats and, consequently, do not expect Certified EHR Technology to be capable of reading or accessing the information in these other formats.”

Based on this statement and Evident specifications, a paper report that is scanned and attached will not be considered structured data.