Electronic Laboratory Surveillance Message: Enhanced Data Reporting for Public Health Laboratories

BACKGROUND: The Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project (PHLIP) initiative is a joint effort between the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with the aim of accelerating the adoption of a national laboratory standards-based electronic data-sharing network.

METHODS: Since early 2010, APHL’s PHLIP Technical Assistance Team has provided hands-on support to state and local public health laboratories in vocabulary harmonization, technical architecture and data exchange mechanisms to implement electronic exchange of Influenza surveillance data with the CDC. With the success of the PHLIP Electronic Laboratory Surveillance Message (ELSM) for Influenza, recent efforts have been launched to build upon and enhance PHLIP surveillance data.

RESULTS: PHLIP has made substantial progress towards its goal, with more than 90% of the nation's state public health laboratories involved with the ELSM Influenza project.  Currently, more than two-thirds of states are reporting production-level Influenza surveillance data to CDC through the PHLIP ELSM feed. The PHLIP ELSM data feed now captures Influenza-like Illness (ILI) information collected for the U.S. Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet).  In addition, an enhanced PHLIP message containing influenza antiviral resistance data has been successfully piloted in a test implementation.  

CONCLUSIONS: Enhanced PHLIP ELSM will provide critical real-time data on antiviral resistance to elucidate national public health trends, as well as allow CDC and PHLs to better understand the epidemiological implications of reported ILI cases relative to different populations.