Project to assist hospital labs in submitting electronic data

February 21, 2011 | Molly Merrill, Associate Editor

ORLANDO, FL – Surescripts, the American Hospital Association and the College of American Pathologists have been awarded a $4.9 million grant to launch a program to prepare hospitals to submit electronic data on reportable lab results to public health agencies – a Stage 1 requirement for meeting meaningful use incentives.

The grant from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was announced Monday, will allow the three organizations to work together in what the CDC calls a "Lab Interoperability Cooperative."

During the two-year grant period, the AHA, CAP and Surescripts will recruit, educate and connect a minimum of 500 hospital labs – of which 100 are critical access or rural hospitals – to the appropriate public health agencies.

The network will support all federal and state policies and standards for health information exchange, including privacy and security standards (such as HIPAA and state law), technology interoperability standards (such as NHIN Direct and NHIN Exchange) and message types such as HL7.

The cooperative will provide technical assistance to enable hospital labs to begin transmitting lab results electronically within six months, but officials said that assistance has not yet been defined.

The AHA will take the lead on educating and reaching out to hospitals about the project.

The CAP will "actively leverage our relationships with its 17,000 pathologists," said Debra J. Konicek, MSN, RN, BC, the college's director of clinical consulting and mapping.

The goal of the project is to assist hospitals to electronically report a core set of 75-100 lab reports to public health agencies, said Konicek. Hospitals are already required to report this, but the network will prepare them to do it in real time, she said.

The benefits of successful electronic lab reporting to public health agencies is threefold said Seth Foldy, director of the public health informatics and technology program office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Increase the speed at which a public health agency becomes aware of and can respond to a communicable disease.
It will increase the completeness of reporting, removing the "human element."
Reduce the manual labor required on both the hospital and public health agency's part.

At the end of the project, hospitals' methodologies for reporting will be sharable and freely available to any health institutions that can use them, said Folds.

Cris Ross, executive vice president of clinical interoperability for Surescripts and Anthony Burke, AHA senior vice president, chief executive officer of AHA Solutions, Inc., (pictured at right) explained what qualifies a hospital for the project:

Capability
We are looking for hospitals that are well structured to take on this initiative, said Burke. In other words, organizations that are "out in front" when it comes to interoperability.

Common Technology
The project seeks hospitals that use the same EHRs or lab systems. "Our intent is not to be additive, but really take [hospitals'] investments to a next level," said Burke.

Geography
Hospitals participating should be reporting to public health agencies that are "geographically concentrated to some degree," said Ross.

Interest
A "commitment to integration issues," is key for hospital participation, said Burke.

Reader Comments (2)Login to Post a Comment

DR says: College of American Pathologists is not SNOMED

February 21, 2011 | 5:30PM GMT

Just wanted to clarify, The College of American Pathologists is not SNOMED. Yes the college was one of the originators, but SNOMED CT is owned by the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO). SNOMED CT was originally designated to become the standard for clinical documentation in 2013 to support Meaningful Use.(problem list) However, it got postponed until 2015. Yes, I agree it would have been better to have just gone from ICD-9 to SNOMED CT first, as a possible crosswalk to ICD-10. However, it is doubtfull the physicians would need to learn these codes, as they are usually mapped in the background, with user friendly names in an EHR's drop down menu. Also ICD and SNOMED are different in sytem and structure. One is a classification system (ICD) which is usually used for reimbursment purposes, where SNOMED is a clinical terminology, used for clinical documentation. And one more thing, never say never, because SNOMED has and will continue to be used in the U.S., you just don't realise that the SNOMED codes have been mapped in the background. It can be obtained through the National Library of Medicine, right here in the good old U.S.A.

Mr. Key says: Surescripts and SNOMED

February 21, 2011 | 2:01PM GMT

Do you readers know that the College of American Pathologists is Actually SNOMED codes, the ones that will replace the ICD 10 codes inn 2014. Do you know that after the doctors go about learning the code changes form ICD 9 to ICD 10's they have to do it all over again for SNOMED. Funny the group that founded SNOMED is the College of American Pathologists, yet the codes have been used in Europe and other countries but never in the USA, why was that?
Perhaps because of groups like SureScripts, CCHIT and others that want to keep the "goodies" to themselves.
I can cite instances that Surescripts and CCHIT go together to block a small size company from becoming a certifying agency for EMR certification because they wanted to prevent us small guys from joining their exclusive club.
Doctors beware, you are going to go from 60,000 codes to 260,000 with ICD10 and then to well over 750,000 codes and variations of them with SNOMED and all for what, isn't ICD10 codes enough and if they aren't why not skip them and go right to SNOMED? Why put you thru the ringer ? I will tell you why, because these "selected golden guys" got together and figured a way to prevent others from coming up with other and maybe better ways of doing things, CCHIT represents the government and surescripts is they partner in arms.Proof is available to anyone that wants it, just ask.
thanks.