New York State ELR – Electronically Transferring Reports of Non-New-York Residents to Their Proper Jurisdictions

      Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) has matured across the country in the past five years. With many health jurisdictions now being able to receive and process laboratory data electronically, more laboratory partners are beginning to submit data electronically as well.  An issue that has come about in New York (NY) is what to do with reports of non-NY patients that are reported electronically to NY state.
            With roughly 95 percent of laboratory reports for NY state licensed facilities being reported through NY’s ELR system, a growing number of laboratory results are being submitted for patients who reside outside of NY.  Until now, these laboratory reports have been printed and mailed to their proper jurisdictions.  NY state has partnered with a few bordering states to electronically send these results from one ELR system to another.
            During the process of implementing the exchanges, many issues were discovered between parties.  Creating the proper file structures for each jurisdiction, resolving security issues with file transfer protocols, and defining which tests to transfer between parties had to be dealt with separately.  With the different levels of technology used by each jurisdiction, dealing with each issue took considerable time and effort by multiple areas of practice.
            A discussion on what NY state and these bordering states have accomplished and the issues that were faced in getting these processes set up could help with the adaptation of nationwide policies for ELR, along with giving the health agencies that are new to ELR some understanding of what to expect and how to potentially resolve these issues.