A Modified Public Health Automated Case Event Reporting Platform for Enhancing Electronic Laboratory Reports With...

Area of Science:

• Public Health Informatics
• Health Data Interoperability
• Epidemiological Surveillance

Background:

• Public health reporting is critical for disease prevention and control.
• Existing electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) systems lack comprehensive case data.
• The Public Health Automated Case Event Reporting (PACER) platform was developed to address this gap by leveraging ELR infrastructure.

Observation:

• A modified PACER system, utilizing Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR), was piloted for electronic case reporting.
• The system queries electronic health records to extract additional case information beyond standard ELR data.
• The pilot focused on analyzing the completeness of demographic, medication, symptom, and diagnosis data.

Findings:

• PACER successfully generated electronic case reports for all identified chlamydia cases.
• The system achieved high completeness rates for demographics (99.1%) and significant completeness for medications (72.6%), symptoms (70.9%), and diagnoses (65%).
• This demonstrates PACER's capability to enrich electronic case reports with crucial epidemiological data.

Implications:

• PACER enhances public health reporting by providing more complete and relevant case information.
• Its modular, FHIR-based architecture supports adaptability for various reportable conditions and evolving outbreaks.
• Improved data completeness facilitates a better understanding of disease epidemiology and supports public health strategies.