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Sunday, August 30, 2009
Grand Hall/Exhibit Hall
As part of a cooperative agreement, state and local health departments are required to submit standardized National HIV Prevention Monitoring and Evaluation data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many of these funded agencies use different local data collection and reporting systems and CDC requires that they submit data in XML format because of its widely accepted and available standards.
Transmitting sensitive public health data from health departments to CDC presents two challenges: data quality and data security. XML data are generated by the funded agencies from their proprietary data repositories using a variety of informational technologies. Although CDC has provided their funded agencies with an XML schema (XSD file), there is no guarantee that the schema will always be followed or the data will always be validated against the schema. Other XML limitations such as the inability to enforce cross-record data checks can degrade the quality of submitted data as well. Due to the sensitive nature of these transmitted data, CDC must also provide, in addition to a secure channel for data transport, means to protect those data even before they reach the secure channel.
To address the aforementioned issues, CDC will pilot a project that will enhance the data transmission process by ensuring the validation of XML data before transmission and integrating with the data encryption process. A small, configurable, user-side application was developed to validate not only the XML syntaxes but also the semantics embedded inside the data. When the data pass validation, the application generates a summary report from which the data encryption pass code will be generated using proprietary algorithms.
The advantages of this approach include:
1. increased data quality
2. a streamlined process that will eliminate turnaround time
3. increased data security
4. improved data processing efficiency
Transmitting sensitive public health data from health departments to CDC presents two challenges: data quality and data security. XML data are generated by the funded agencies from their proprietary data repositories using a variety of informational technologies. Although CDC has provided their funded agencies with an XML schema (XSD file), there is no guarantee that the schema will always be followed or the data will always be validated against the schema. Other XML limitations such as the inability to enforce cross-record data checks can degrade the quality of submitted data as well. Due to the sensitive nature of these transmitted data, CDC must also provide, in addition to a secure channel for data transport, means to protect those data even before they reach the secure channel.
To address the aforementioned issues, CDC will pilot a project that will enhance the data transmission process by ensuring the validation of XML data before transmission and integrating with the data encryption process. A small, configurable, user-side application was developed to validate not only the XML syntaxes but also the semantics embedded inside the data. When the data pass validation, the application generates a summary report from which the data encryption pass code will be generated using proprietary algorithms.
The advantages of this approach include:
1. increased data quality
2. a streamlined process that will eliminate turnaround time
3. increased data security
4. improved data processing efficiency