This panel will present their experiences and lessons learned of working with different data formats and transport mechanisms used for electronic laboratory reporting by clinics, hospitals, public health laboratories, and the CDC, as well as help the participant understand what is likely to lay ahead of them, and get them thinking about the questions they'll need to ask as they start their reporting.

Abstract

This paper describes the processes, products, and results of electronic reporting from the perspective of clinics to Public Health Laboratories (PHLs) to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and beyond.  This will be accomplished through a panel discussion with experts on each of these “segments” of reporting data.

Each segment has its data producers and consumers, and intricacies regarding data formats, transport mechanisms, and end uses. Each panel member will answer questions from a moderator and from the audience regarding their experiences with these issues.

Discussion

There are many obstacles to overcome in electronic reporting healthcare data. These obstacles start at the individual laboratories in how and what data they collect and the format of the collected data. These challenges continue as the data is formatted, transported, formatted again, transported again, and so on until the end user receives the data. Nearly 100% of the time the intermediary consumers and often the end user must work with multiple data formats from multiple transport mechanisms. This panel will discuss their lessons learned and project the near-term road map ahead.

Conclusion

Over the last several years, Public Health and ambulatory care entities have taken vastly different approaches to implementation of health information technology. These varied approaches included the adoption of several different standards and even varied revision levels of those standards. Current projects are driven by two factors - government funding and economic impacts. The key to achieving a sustainable infrastructure requires a more proactive approach, standardization, and rationalization with an eye toward a common interoperability goal.