COVID-19 reporting – interoperability matters

Infection control has always relied on receiving data in a normalized format to identify new or novel diseases to manage the spread and containment of these diseases. The reporting of diseases and healthcare conditions to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been in place since the 1950’s and in March 2020, the CDC created a module to collect patient data for confirmed positive cases for COVID-19. All healthcare organizations are required to collate and identify the appropriate data elements for COVID-19 reporting to the CDC. The challenge for many healthcare entities is to understand what needs to be reported and how to retrieve the data from their existing patient systems.

In a recent COVID-19 LIVE! Briefing, hosted by the Dark Intelligence Group, Andrea Pitkus, PhD,MLS (ASCP) CM from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, a healthcare and laboratory healthcare interoperability expert, discussed the changes and updates to the COVID-19 reporting requirements to now include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), effective August 1, 2020. Dr. Pitkus  has been involved in a HL7 workgroup focused on messaging standards guidance that can be utilized to meet the HHS’ new COVID-19 reporting requirements across the laboratory data messaging continuum. Dr. Pitkus has been responsible for ensuring that the University of Wisconsin complies with these changes in reporting and offers her recommendations on how to meet these requirements.

Dr. Pitkus indicated in her COVID-19 LIVE! presentation, “Each organization must be aware of the reporting requirements and make every good faith effort to report the COVID-19 data elements to the HHS even if there is missing data.”

HHS reporting - common questions

Entities that perform COVID-19 must report their testing results to the HHS. Those laboratories that have established electronic reporting may need to make minimal modifications to support the new data reporting requirements. Dr. Pitkus indicated that laboratories using paper based reporting or non-standardized electronic reporting may have more work to do to meet these new HHS requirements.

The reporting requirements may seem daunting to some organizations with older or undeveloped software systems or paper-based methods that manage COVID-19 test results. Dr. Pitkus provided guidance for a few common questions.

Question: What if we are unable to capture all the required demographic data that has been requested?

Dr. Pitkus:  Initially report all the data that you have regarding the COVID-19 required elements by the August 1, 2020. The missing data can be augmented at a later date. There are resources available through your state or federal HIE (Health Information Exchange) and national Health Information Networks (HIN) to obtain missing, required information.

Question: What if I do not have a field for the UDI (Universal Device Indicator) reporting?

Dr. Pitkus: This data element is new according to Dr. Pitkus and many LISs could lack the functionality to collect and store the UDIs at this time. Dr. Pitkus recommends that an alternate field in the HL7 message transaction can be used to transmit the UDI with some changes in the LIS message structure.

COVID-19 spurs interoperability collaboration

The healthcare and IT communities have always advocated for standards for interoperability and many consensus working groups are working towards agreement on data exchange  standards across many different spectrums of healthcare management.  The COVID-19 virus has further exposed the need and the gap in national interoperability standards for software systems to quickly and accurately transmit patient data that can be available in real-time to act upon trends and insights.

The situation has spurred the collaboration between partners in healthcare that includes healthcare organizations, technology firms, non-profits, start-ups, and academia. The COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition has created a Decision Support Dashboard to help inform public policy using shared analytics. This organization built a critical infrastructure to enable collaboration and sharing of data that is normalized, standardized, and organized to combat the impact of COVID-19.  

Check out the website at www.c19hcc.org. See what can happen when stakeholders come together to innovate and aggregate data for meaningful interoperability.

Listen to Dr. Pitkus’ s Dark Intelligence Group COVID-19 LIVE! Briefing presentations here to learn how to comply with the COVID-19 reporting requirements.  For further guidance, access the  CDC LOCS website for the full details.