Public Health Informatics

good morning APHL Listserv, 

I am interested in feedback from other jurisdictions how you may be addressing HL7 data reporting. We are working with national partners to complete HL7 reporting of their results back to us and are concerned with how we are expected to receive results. What I am told is that our national partner plan to transfer data only via HL7, and not include a "locked" report, i.e., a .pdf file. Per CLIA requirements, "the referring lab (we) must not revise results or information directly...", and being good stewards of health data, prefer to receive data that cannot be susceptible to revision, regardless of no nefarious actors being involved. As manual data entry issues are prone to occur, even with direct integration, we prefer to remove any opportunities. 

How are programs ensuring CLIA compliance with reference laboratory results? feel free to reach out to me directly. 

Thank you!

Greg

Hello Greg,

I wanted to provide a response from APHL after talking to the terminologists on our team. HL7 obviously has the ability to send PDFs, and some PHLs are sending results from reference labs as PDFs in their HL7 result message. To the best of our knowledge, none of the larger labs (Quest, LabCorp, Arup) are sending PDF to clients via HL7. Related to HL7 standards specifically, it would be best practice to ensure that when forwarding the results the OBX-23 and OBX-24 and OBX-25 are appropriately reflecting the performing organization and are not hardcoded to the PHL itself. Otherwise, this sounds like a policy question, with organizational leadership possibly placing restrictions on how the PHL is allowed to send or receive results. Do others have thoughts? Have you encountered similar issues in your jurisdiction?

good morning APHL Listserv, 

I am interested in feedback from other jurisdictions how you may be addressing HL7 data reporting. We are working with national partners to complete HL7 reporting of their results back to us and are concerned with how we are expected to receive results. What I am told is that our national partner plan to transfer data only via HL7, and not include a "locked" report, i.e., a .pdf file. Per CLIA requirements, "the referring lab (we) must not revise results or information directly...", and being good stewards of health data, prefer to receive data that cannot be susceptible to revision, regardless of no nefarious actors being involved. As manual data entry issues are prone to occur, even with direct integration, we prefer to remove any opportunities. 

How are programs ensuring CLIA compliance with reference laboratory results? feel free to reach out to me directly. 

Thank you!

Greg

Hello Greg,

I wanted to provide a response from APHL after talking to the terminologists on our team. HL7 obviously has the ability to send PDFs, and some PHLs are sending results from reference labs as PDFs in their HL7 result message. To the best of our knowledge, none of the larger labs (Quest, LabCorp, Arup) are sending PDF to clients via HL7. Related to HL7 standards specifically, it would be best practice to ensure that when forwarding the results the OBX-23 and OBX-24 and OBX-25 are appropriately reflecting the performing organization and are not hardcoded to the PHL itself. Otherwise, this sounds like a policy question, with organizational leadership possibly placing restrictions on how the PHL is allowed to send or receive results. Do others have thoughts? Have you encountered similar issues in your jurisdiction?

good morning APHL Listserv, 

I am interested in feedback from other jurisdictions how you may be addressing HL7 data reporting. We are working with national partners to complete HL7 reporting of their results back to us and are concerned with how we are expected to receive results. What I am told is that our national partner plan to transfer data only via HL7, and not include a "locked" report, i.e., a .pdf file. Per CLIA requirements, "the referring lab (we) must not revise results or information directly...", and being good stewards of health data, prefer to receive data that cannot be susceptible to revision, regardless of no nefarious actors being involved. As manual data entry issues are prone to occur, even with direct integration, we prefer to remove any opportunities. 

How are programs ensuring CLIA compliance with reference laboratory results? feel free to reach out to me directly. 

Thank you!

Greg