DOH to Upgrade Uniform Assessment System Platform and Format

The Department of Health (DOH) issued two communications to Uniform Assessment System for New York (UAS-NY) Long-Term Care Users this July regarding the Department’s upgrade to Version 1.6 of the UAS-NY. The memoranda can be accessed here and here.

The first memo indicates the initial dates for the software upgrade and a release of training documents on the new upgrade, including a release of the UAS-NY Offline Application. The second memorandum delays the implementation date. The online upgrade will now begin on Tues., Aug. 13^th at 5 p.m. and will be completed by Wed., Aug. 14^th at 8 a.m. During this time, both online and offline applications will be unavailable. A training video and new reference manual will be available by Aug. 2^nd in the UAS-NY Training Environmental References and Resources Course.

Changes to the UAS-NY for Offline Users will also follow the same implementation dates. Users should be sure to synchronize and remove all records from laptops by 4 p.m. on Tues., Aug. 13^th.

UAS-NY Long-Term Care Users should be aware of the following software changes:

1. The following calculations generated in a UAS-NY Community Health Assessment (CHA) will calculate and display only upon finalization of the assessment:
   1. Nursing Facility Level of Care (NFLOC)
   2. Resource Utilization Group (RUG)
   3. Clinical Assessment Protocols (CAPs)
   4. Scales
2. The NFLOC calculation for the two UAS-NY Pediatric Assessments will calculate and display only upon finalization of the assessment.
3. The NFLOC Report will only generate after an assessment is signed and finalized.
4. At the point of adding a new UAS-NY CHA or Pediatric Assessment, the Assessment Reference Date may be backdated no more than three calendar days.
5. At the point of adding a new UAS-NY CHA or Pediatric Assessment to a record, only the Medications node and Disease Diagnosis node (including International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes) may be carried forward from the last most recently conducted assessment by or on behalf of your program or plan. Keep in mind that data located in the Identification Info node (name, contact information, gender, date of birth, marital status, etc.) and Addresses node are not part of an individual assessment; rather, they are part of the individual record and therefore automatically become associated with any new assessment added to a person record. It should be noted that several LeadingAge NY provider members communicated concern to DOH on this new policy regarding lack of carry-over data within the UAS software, however it appears that the Department is moving forward with the change. 
6. A new aggregate report, Organization Case List, captures the list of records in an organization’s case list with an active attestation and consent. This report documents the Health Commerce System (HCS) User ID associated with attestation, identifies attestation expiration, and provides an easy method for identifying records in your case list that may be “unfindable” because of a spelling error in the Last Name field.
7. Updated editions of the Assessment Reference Manual and Demographic Information Reference Manual associated with this release will be posted in the UAS-NY Training Environment References and Resources Course 8100, Section 3, Assessment Reference Manuals.

The memo also indicates that the calculations for NFLOC, RUG, CAPs, and Scales will calculate and display only upon finalization of the UAS-NY CHA.

If UAS-NY users have questions or concerns or need additional information, please contact the UAS-NY Support Desk at 518-408-1021 or uasny@health.ny.gov.

Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871