Reporting diseases and conditions of interest to public health by healthcare is required by law in all US States and Territories. Automating case reporting reduces provider burden and minimizes follow-up investigation phone calls and paperwork. It also provides information to healthcare providers from public health about an identified reportable condition that can include notices of disease outbreaks, infection control information, and next-step testing and patient management.

eCR dramatically improves the timeliness, collection, and completeness of disease and condition reporting. It can lead to earlier implementation of interventions and help limit further exposure and spread. eCR from electronic health records also provides critical clinical data. eCR also includes important public health data, like travel history, that are not usually found in clinical electronic documents.

Automating the submission of case reports from healthcare providers reduces the burden of meeting the legal requirement to report, while improving the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of data for public health action. Manual reporting processes can stall the public health response required to manage case investigations, contain outbreaks, or plan interventions to protect a population’s health. eCR allows reports to be sent automatically from a provider's electronic health record system to the public health agency in near real time, alleviating manual reporting burden.

Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and Health Information Networks (HINs) are important partners for eCR. They can support policy and technical scalability for eCR to help enable the many-to-many connections needed between clinical care organizations and public health agencies. This section of the website contains information specific to the use of eCR services by HIEs to help reduce healthcare provider burden by automating legally required reporting from their EHRs.