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Meaningful Use

Electronic  Health  Record  (EHR)  data  offers  the  researcher a potentially rich source of data for tracking disease  syndromes. Procedures  performed  on  the  patient, medications prescribed (not necessarily filled by  the  patient),  and  reason  for  visit  are  just  some  characteristics of the patient encounter that are available  through  an  EHR  that  can  be  used  to  define  surveillance  syndromes.    Since  procedures  have  not  been used frequently in defining syndromes, encounter  level  procedures  data,  extracted  from  the  EHR  of  a   large   local   primary   care   practice   with   about   200,000 patient encounters per year was used to identify  procedures  associated  with  an  established  respiratory syndrome.

Objective

To investigate the utility of different sources of patient encounter information, particularly in the primary care setting, that can be used to characterize surveillance syndromes, such as respiratory or flu.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

This paper describes a study of various aberration detection algorithms currently used in syndromic surveillance and one based on artificial neural networks developed at Guelph. The goal of the research is not to select one ìwinningî algorithm but to instead understand the characteristics of the algorithms so that a systems designer can successfully use all of these algorithms in an outbreak detection system.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

 Internet-based technologies have been used to assist in disease surveillance and reporting.  The Public Health Agency of Canada operates the Global Public Health Information Network, credited with early notification of many outbreaks (including SARS) through automated multilingual analysis of internet media sources such as news wires and web pages(www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/media/nr-rp/2004/2004_gphinrmispbk_e.html). An innovative web-based forum (www.RUsick2.msu.edu) collects foodborne illness reports from visitors to a web site and has been used to identify foodborne outbreaks in Michigan (1).   Health-related topics are among the most popular Internet searches. Many individuals experiencing symptoms of illness conduct Internet searches prior to seeking medical attention.  An early site-based study found limited utility to monitoring of Internet queries (2), but recent developments merit re-examination of the potential of internet searches for public health surveillance purposes.

Objective:

To evaluate whether trends in internet searches might provide useful data for public health surveillance.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

This paper describes the value of a distributed approach to population health efforts that span clinical research, quality measurement and public health. The goal of the paper is to challenge the traditional paradigm which relies on centralized data repositories with more distributed models where data collection and analysis remains as close to local data sources as possible. We will propose that a distributed approach is desirable because it allows for information to reside more closely with those who can act upon it and it can overcome existing barriers by allowing information to be shared more rapidly and effectively while minimizing privacy risks.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

The final rules released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services specified the initial criteria for eligible hospitals to qualify for an incentive payment by demonstrating meaningful use of certified Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology. Syndromic surveillance reporting is one of three public health objectives that eligible hospitals can choose for stage 1. The PHIN messaging guide for syndromic surveillance was published for hospitals to construct emergency department data using Admit Discharge Transfer (ADT) messages, with the minimum dataset that is standard among hospitals and public health agencies. Currently New York hospitals are reporting emergency department (ED) visit data to the NY syndromic surveillance (SS) system. Patient chief complaint data are monitored for trends of illness at the community level in order to detect possible outbreaks and situational awareness.

Objective: 

To evaluate the readiness and timeliness of ED data submitted by hospitals following PHIN syndromic surveillance messaging guide and to evaluate the availability of minimum data elements. To validate the accuracy and completeness of data from ADT messages compared with data currently reported to the NY syndromic surveillance system.

 

Submitted by Magou on

The survey, developed by the ISDS Meaningful Use Business Process Mapping Subgroup, was designed to facilitate conversations between health care facilities and public health departments before and during Meaningful Use implementation and onboarding.

Submitted by ctong on

Objective:

The objective of this project is to enable the ESSENCE system to read in, utilize, and export out meaningful use syndromic surveillance data using the Health Level 7 (HL7) v2.5 standard. This presentation will detail the technical hurdles with reading a meaningful use syndromic surveillance data feed containing multiple sources, deriving a common meaning from the varying uses of the standard and writing data out to a meaningful use HL7 2.5 format that can be exported to other tools, such as BioSense 2.0 (2). The presentation will also describe the technologies employed for facilitating this, such as Mirth, and will discuss how other systems could utilize these tools to also support processing meaningful use syndromic surveillance data.

Introduction:

In order to utilize the new meaningful use syndromic surveillance data sets that many public health departments are now receiving, modifications to their systems must be made. Typically this involves enabling the storage and processing of the extra fields the new standard contains. Open source software exists, such as Mirth Connect, to help with reading and interpreting the standard. However, issues with reliably reading data from one source to another arise when the standard itself is misunderstood. Systems that process this data must understand that while the data they receive is in the HL7 v2.5 standard format, the meaning of the data fields might be different from provider to provider. Additional work is necessary to sift thro

Submitted by jababrad@indiana.edu on

Timeliness of emergency room (ER) data is arguably its strongest attribute in terms of its contribution to disease surveillance. Timely data analyses may improve the efficacy of prevention and control measures. There are a number of studies that have looked at timeliness prior to the advent of Meaningful Use, and these studies note that ER data were not fast enough for them to be useful in real time2,3. However, the change in messaging practices in the Meaningful Use era potentially changes this. Other studies have shown that changes in processes and protocol can dramatically improve timeliness1,4 and this motivates the current study of timeliness to identify processes that can be changed to improve timeliness.

Objective:

To explore the timeliness of emergency room surveillance data after the advent of federal Meaningful Use initiatives and determine potential areas for improvement.

Submitted by elamb on
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