EHR pilot seeks to standardize public health reporting

Preliminary results of a pilot project testing standardized reporting of public health information from electronic health records (EHRs) reveals that by using templates for clinical data, public health officials can improve the quality and coordination of care as they try to contain problems such as West Nile Virus, or outbreaks of whooping cough or flu. The pilot project is part of a three-year program in which IBM, the CDC, and the Public Health Data Standards Consortium (PHDSC) are collaborating on ways to make patient health data in EHRs quicker and easier for health officials to access.