How can health IT aid public health surveillance? (infographic)

Health IT obviously should be part of public health surveillance efforts because epidemiology relies so heavily on data. With this in mind, the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has published a new infographic explaining the use of health IT in syndromic surveillance and electronic public health reporting.

Some of the numbers are impressive. Thanks in no small part to the Meaningful Useincentive program for electronic health records — something ONC certainly wants to promote — the volume of laboratory results available for electronic reporting to public health agencies has soared since 2011.

There certainly is a long way to go, however. While upwards of 1,500 hospitals are sending syndromic surveillance data electronically to public health agencies, that is barely a quarter of the nearly 5,700 U.S. hospitals in operation, according to American Hospital Association data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1OVAJkB

from health IT caucus http://ift.tt/1LBRJLG
via IFTTT