Work

Automatic Electronic Laboratory-Based Reporting of Notifiable Infectious Diseases

Year: 2002

Type: article

Abstract: Electronic laboratory-based reporting, developed by the UPMC Health System, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was evaluated to determine if it could be integrated into the conventional paper-based reporting system.We reviewed reports of 10 infectious diseases from 8 UPMC hospitals that reported to the Allegheny County Health Department in southwestern Pennsylvania during January 1-November 26, 2000.Electronic reports were received a median of 4 days earlier than conventional reports.The completeness of reporting was 74% (95% confidence interval [CI] 66% to 81%) for the electronic laboratory-based reporting and 65% (95% CI 57% to 73%) for the conventional paper-based reporting system (p>0.05).Most reports (88%) missed by electronic laboratory-based reporting were caused by using free text.Automatic reporting was more rapid and as complete as conventional reporting.Using standardized coding and minimizing free text usage will increase the completeness of electronic laboratory-based reporting.ublic health surveillance of infectious diseases is crucial for detecting and responding to illnesses that may represent potential outbreaks or bioterrorism events (1,2).The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is collaborating with state health departments to improve current disease surveillance by using a standards-based information architecture through the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), which includes electronic laboratory-based reporting of certain diseases to local, state, and federal public health authorities (3-5).Automatic reporting at private clinical laboratories in Hawaii has been shown to be more rapid and complete than conventional reporting (6).Allegheny County (population 1,348,000) is located in southwestern Pennsylvania and includes the city of Pittsburgh.Incidences of notifiable diseases in the county are required by law to be reported directly to the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD).Each notifiable event is recorded on a case report form that is mailed or faxed to the ACHD by laboratory personnel, physicians, nurses, or infection-control staff; this procedure constitutes the conventional paper-based reporting system (Figure 1).A notifiable event is considered reported when received and confirmed by the health department.The UPMC Health System is a large university-based health-care network consisting of approximately 20 hospitals and hospital affiliates (http://www.upmc.edu) in western Pennsylvania and is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh School of the Health Sciences.UPMC established real-time, electronic laboratory-based reporting.This system is based on an existing hospital communications infrastructure designed to improve the speed and completeness of reporting (Wagner MM et al., unpub.data).ACHD personnel estimate that 40% of all notifiable infectious diseases reported to the ACHD come from UPMC.We evaluated the accuracy, completeness of coverage, and timeliness of electronic laboratory-based reporting before its integration into the conventional paperbased reporting system (7).

Source: Emerging infectious diseases

DOI: 10.3201/eid0807.010493