The Usefulness of Facility Tracking System for Electronic Laboratory Reporting in New York State

BACKGROUND:  New York State passed a public health law in 2007 which required licensed clinical laboratories reporting evidence of a reportable disease electronically to the health department.  With over 500 laboratories reporting via the Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System (ECLRS) to 57 Local Health Departments (LHDs), New  York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH) and New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH),  timely and unified communication with labs regarding any issues related to  reporting is crucial. The Stage 2 Meaningful Use (MU2) required eligible hospitals to do on-going submission of electronic laboratory reports and syndromic surveillance data to Public Health Agencies.  It is important to track the onboarding process and communicate with hospitals for any issues.

METHODS: A facility tracking system was developed to provide contact information for all laboratories with an approved license to perform tests for New York residents and to track the status of  data validation process of each facility reporting through the ECLRS.  In addition, types of data (Communicable Diseases, HIV, Heavy Metal, Cancer, Syndromic Surveillance) and data format submitted (HL7, ASCII, web entry), transport methods used and coding schemes applied were also collected. The tracking system captures Laboratory Information System vendor information for each facility if applicable.  There are search utility and adhoc reports functionalities available for users.  The system also provides a function to track issues which allow program areas to log phone calls with the labs, maintain problem resolutions, and update other program areas about potential problems being seen at a particular site.

RESULTS: As of December 31, 2014, there were 370 labs reporting communicable diseases, 125 labs reporting Lead, 94 labs reporting HIV and 150 labs reporting Cancer with over 2.5 million records annually submitted via ECLRS. A total of 185 labs currently are reporting in HL7 format, 204 labs are using LOINC and 158 labs are using SNOMED coding scheme.  There were 79 hospitals that started MU2 on-boarding process and 34 hospitals submit production lab reports via ECLRS daily.

CONCLUSIONS: With the push for nationwide electronic laboratory reporting and Meaningful Use, a tracking system such as this can play a vital role for states to keep track of which laboratories that are licensed to report are indeed reporting electronically as well as what problems they may be having in reaching their goals.  The system is also used to generate reports of hospitals that are at different stage of Meaningful Use.