Vaccine Preventable Disease Reporting: Condition-Specific Data Element Review and Standardization Based On 2009 CSTE Position Statements

Background: The Case Report Standardization Workgroup (CRSWg) was formed to promote the standardization and advancement of public health case reporting (PHCR).  The CRSWg is a collaborative workgroup formed by CDC’s National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and includes members from CDC, academia, and state/local public health settings, who have expertise in the areas of vocabulary and terminology, epidemiology, and data modeling.   The CRSWg first identified common core data elements for all conditions (CSTE position statement 09-SI-01) and have now initiated a review of condition-specific data elements for vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) included in the 2009 CSTE position statements, in order to standardize data elements (by categories, e.g. epidemiological, clinical) across condition types.  

Setting: CDC Vocabulary Web Services, Public health and clinical care information systems

Population: Clinical care (e.g., Electronic Medical Record System) and Public Health information systems sending/receiving electronic case report

Project Description: CRSWg’s approach is to 1) Analyze and standardize CSTE data elements by categories (e.g., Vaccination History and Travel History), 2) During analysis, review the work already done by  SDOs and other workgroups (e.g., HL7, HITSP, IHE)  3) Analyze each data element and solicit feedback from CSTE position statement authors and steering committees, as well as CDC programs and subject matter experts; 4) Provide to stakeholders the rationale for the condition-specific data elements recommendations in CSTE position statements  5) Map data elements to standardized codes, publish, and maintain.

Results/Lessons Learned: A systematic review of condition-specific data elements is an important step to standardizing the selection and representation of data elements.  Our review of VPDs resulted in a categorical framework that can be applied across all conditions.  This effort may lead to improved timeliness and completeness of public health case reporting.