Electronic Health Record Incentive Program (“Meaningful Use”)

Syndromic Surveillance Data Standards and Requirements

Content Exchange

Meaningful use requires an HL7 2.3.1 or HL7 2.5.1 message. The message Content is defined and informed by the document The Core Processes and EHR Requirements of Public Health Syndromic Surveillance which is available at http://www.syndromic.org/projects/meaningful-use. The messaging guide is open for public comment. A link to the current draft can be found here: http://cdc.gov/phin/library/guides/Syndromic_Surveillance_Implementation_Guide_Release_1_4.pdf.

Reportable Findings

Information on all visits to hospital emergency departments . urgent care facilities, and primary care practices should be included in the transmission.

Reporting Timeframe

Files should be submitted each day for the previous 24 hour period. They are generally transmitted after midnight with data from the previous calendar day. If you are unable to send a batch file, alternatives may be discussed.

Implementation

Meaningful use requires facilities to submit at least one test transmission, and to follow-up with actual transmissions if the test is successful. GDPH business and technical contacts will work with messaging partners on any questions regarding message data elements or message construct based on what is available in the ISDS document. Once the EHR system is able to produce a message based on the implementation guide, a test message should be sent to the GDPH technical contact for construct validation. The GDPH technical contact will work with the facility to establish a message feed into GDPH’s acceptance testing environment. The facility should continue to send a live feed while GDPH conducts content validation. After the feed is established and validation is completed, GDPH will notify the facility that the message has been tested and accepted and it will be moved into production. The facility is expected to maintain the transmissions to meet the meaningful use objective and to comply with appropriate reporting and usual practice.

Message Transport

Currently, GDPH is able to accept data transmission via a secure mechanism developed and freely distributed by CDC known as Public Health Information Network Messaging System (PHINMS). For more information on PHINMS, go to: http://www.cdc.gov/phin/tools/PHINms/index.html.

In addition, if PHINMS is not an option, we also will accept data transmission via SFTP (Secure FTP over Secure Shell v.2).

<<BACK