Overview
Every public health agency (PHA) has the legal authority to receive case reports on conditions of interest to them, and these conditions and criteria for reporting can vary greatly from agency to agency. While historically this type of reporting has been done by paper-based submission, electronic case reporting (eCR) is moving this process into a more automated process.
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 healthcare provider’s electronic health record (EHR) system to the PHA in near real time, alleviating manual reporting burden.
It is a time-and-cost-efficient tool that leads to rapid productivity in disease case reporting and data collection, improving routine outbreak management.
Included here is information relevant to PHAs as they begin to implement the eCR functionality. The items include:
-
Understanding the standards used for eCR messages (electronic initial case report (eICR) and Reportability Response (RR))
-
How a PHA should prepare in order to implement eCR
-
Where the Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) decision support and authoring fit in with the eCR process
-
How to handle onboarding and implementation
