Received some more information on this topic from somebody via email:
The CCDAs generated by PF contain encounter data (including vital signs) only for signed charts. In a perfect world, every encounter will be signed before the provider leaves the clinic, but the world is often not perfect and encounters can remain unsigned for some time. Before clinics use the bulk CCDA feature that PF has provided, they need to ensure that every single encounter is signed.
Also, I wanted to give you an example of info in PF that is NOT included in the CCDAs. If a clinic uses an unstructured free-text field to store clinic-specific data, that data will not be included in the CCDA, such as the “Past Medical History” free-text area.
So, in general, our advice to anyone moving away from PF is to make sure every encounter is signed before they generate the CCDAs, and to realize that the free-text data in the “Notes” section or the Past Medical History sections won’t be included in the CCDAs. If they need that free-text data, they need to request the full dump and see if it’s there; if it’s not, they’ll need to get it manually.