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Electronic Laboratory Report (ELR)

Description

Standard vocabulary facilitates the routing and filtering of laboratory data to various public health programs. In 2008, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) developed 67 Technical Implementation Guides (TIGs) that accompany each condition and contain standard codes for NNC reporting. Those TIGs were reviewed by a public health subject matter expert panel (SMEP), in May 2010, consisting of members of the CDC CSTE Laboratory and PHIN Vocabulary and Messaging Communities of Practice Program, and representatives from the Regenstrief Institute and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization.

Objective

Electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) has a key role in public health case reporting and case notification. This paper will discuss the current status, problems, and solutions in a vocabulary support of nationally notifiable conditions (NNC) reporting.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Communicable disease reporting from providers can be a time-consuming process that results in delayed or incomplete reporting of infectious diseases, limiting public health's ability to respond quickly to prevent or control disease. The recent development of an HL7 standard for automated Electronic initial case reports (eICR) represents an important advancement for public health surveillance. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) participated in a pilot with the Public Health Informatics Institute and an Illinois-based provider group to accept eICR reports for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia.

Objective: Comparison of content in eCR and ELR cases reporting Review technical challenges and strategies for data management

Submitted by elamb on
Description

Syndromic surveillance achieves timeliness by collecting prediagnostic data, such as emergency department chief complaints, from the start of healthcare interactions. The tradeoff is less precision than from diagnosis data, which takes longer to generate. As the use and sophistication of electronic health information systems increases, additional data that provide an intermediate balance of timeliness and precision are becoming available. Information about the procedures and treatments ordered for a patient can indicate what diagnoses are being considered. Procedure records can also be used to track the use of preventive measures such as vaccines that are also relevant to public health surveillance but not readily captured by typical syndromic data elements. Some procedures such as laboratory tests also provide results which can provide additional specificity about which diagnoses will be considered. If procedure and treatment orders and test results are included in existing syndromic surveillance feeds, additional specificity can be achieved with timeliness comparable to prediagnostic assessments.

Objective: To identify additional data elements in existing syndromic surveillance message feeds that can provide additional insight into public health concerns such as the influenza season.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

The emerging threat of antimicrobial resistant organisms is a pressing public health concern. Surveillance for antimicrobial resistance can prevent infections, protect patients in the healthcare setting and improve antimicrobial use. In 2018, the Utah Department of Health mandated the reporting of antimicrobial susceptibility panels performed on selected organisms. Utah utilizes the Electronic Message Staging Area (EMSA), a home-grown application to translate, process, and enter electronic laboratory results into UT-NEDSS, Utah'™s integrated disease surveillance system. Processing these results electronically is challenging due to the need to interpret results based on the antimicrobial agent combined with the organism it was performed on. The receipt of antimicrobial susceptibility panels has required enhancements to EMSA for these results to be automatically processed.

Objective: Illustrate how the Utah Department of Health automatically processes antimicrobial susceptibility results that are received electronically

Submitted by elamb on