Promoting Interoperability Program

The NHSN Antimicrobial Use (AU) and Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) (AUR) Module reporting is an option to meet the Public Health Registry reporting element within the CMS Medicare Promoting Interoperability (PI) Program for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAH).

Refer to the certification criterion (§ 170.315(f)(6)) in the Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Electronic Health Record Incentive Program-Stage 3 and Modifications to Meaningful Use in 2015 Through 2017external icon rule. Refer to the CMS Promoting Interoperability Program webpagesexternal icon for calendar year-specific submission requirements.  

AUR Promoting Interoperability Program Guidance

Note: The NHSN application and information below still display the old program name: Meaningful Use Stage 3 (MU3). The NHSN Team is working to get these pages updated with the new program name.

• Promoting Interoperability – Guidance for NHSN Facilities, January 2022 pdf icon[PDF – 500 KB]
• The NHSN user interface includes an AUR-MU3 registration of intent page.
  • Only the NHSN Facility Administrator will have user rights to register the facility’s AUR-MU3 intent.
• Perquisites for registering intent and sending electronic AUR CDA data:
  • Facility is enrolled in NHSN
    • If the facility is not enrolled, review information on enrolling your facility
  • Facility locations are mapped within NHSN
  • Monthly reporting plans exist for month/year of data to be transmitted
  • Assigned NHSN Object Identifier (OID) has been entered into NHSN
    • If facility does not have an OID, view the Object Identifier (OID) assignment procedure pdf icon[PDF – 200 KB] to request a unique OID
  • A facility is required to use a vendor software that has been certified by the ONC Health IT Certification Program for NHSN Antimicrobial Use and Resistance reporting. Use this site to check if your vendor has been certifiedexternal icon.
• Facilities that have registered their intent shall receive a monthly status report of AUR data successfully uploaded to NHSN. An email shall be sent to the Facility Administrator and two optional emails as designated on the AUR-MU3 registration page.
• For more detailed information on NHSN CDAs, view the NHSN CDA Submission Support Portal (CSSP) site.
• Download AU and AR CDA Toolkits
  • Toolkits include xml samples, helpful hints, vocabulary, business rule information, important links, etc.

AUR-MU3 Validation Tool

In order to qualify as certified technology, an Electronic Health Record (EHR) or EHR Module must be capable of creating Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) documents for Antimicrobial Use and Resistance conformant to the CDA Implementation Guides below. (To download an Implementation Guide, you are required to login to the HL7 site.)

The following CDAs must all be successfully generated.

• Antimicrobial Resistance Option (ARO) Report (Numerator):  R2 Implementation Guide: Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Reports, Release 3 – US Realm (Volume 3)external icon
• Antimicrobial Resistance Option (ARO) Summary Report (Denominator): R2 Implementation Guide: Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Reports, Release 3, STU 4 – US Realm (Volume 3)external icon
• Antimicrobial Use (AUP) Summary Report (Numerator and Denominator): Release 2: Healthcare Associated Infection Reports, Release 1 – August 2013external icon, specific document template in Section 2.1.1.2 (pages 56-58)

You may self-validate your files prior to sending them to the ONC Health IT Certification Program. View the instructions for using the Lantana Consulting Group Schematron Validator on the NHSN Validation Tools & Test Sites webpage.

ONC Certification

To learn more about the ONC Health IT Certification Program and the “Transmission to public health agencies – antimicrobial use and resistance reporting” criterion at 170.315(f)(6), please refer to the Certification Companion Guide for (f)(6)external icon published by ONC. For more information about ONC Certification generally, please refer to the ONC Certification homepageexternal icon.