Development and Assessment of a Public Health Alert Delivered through a Community Health Information Exchange

Timely communication of information to health care providers during a public health event can improve overall response to such events. However, current methods for sending information to providers are inefficient and costly. Local health departments have traditionally used labor-intensive, mail-based processes to send public health alerts to the provider community. This article describes a novel approach for delivering public health alerts to providers by leveraging an electronic clinical messaging system within the context of a health information exchange. Alerts included notifications related to the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic, a syphilis outbreak, and local rabies exposure. We describe the process for sending electronic public health alerts and the estimated impact on efficiency and cost effectiveness.

[1]  C. McDonald,et al.  A computerized reminder system to increase the use of preventive care for hospitalized patients. , 2001, The New England journal of medicine.

[2]  W M Tierney,et al.  Effectiveness of Computer-Generated Reminders for Increasing Discussions about Advance Directives and Completion of Advance Directive Forms , 1998, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[3]  J. Marc Overhage,et al.  A Framework for evaluating the costs, effort, and value of nationwide health information exchange , 2010, J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc..

[4]  J. Marc Overhage,et al.  The Indiana Public Health Emergency Surveillance System: Ongoing Progress, Early Findings, and Future Directions , 2006, AMIA.

[5]  A. Davidson,et al.  Assessing the relationship between health information exchanges and public health agencies. , 2009, Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP.

[6]  J. Marc Overhage,et al.  Computerized Reminders for Syphilis Screening in an Urban Emergency Department , 2003, AMIA.

[7]  E. Baker,et al.  The health alert network: partnerships, politics, and preparedness. , 2005, Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP.

[8]  Scott,et al.  Computerized Alerts Improve Outpatient Laboratory Monitorin of Transplant Patients , 2008 .

[9]  Mike Barnes Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Clinical Messaging Systems , 2007, AMIA.

[10]  J. Marc Overhage,et al.  A comparison of the completeness and timeliness of automated electronic laboratory reporting and spontaneous reporting of notifiable conditions. , 2008, American journal of public health.

[11]  K. Mandl,et al.  Connecting health departments and providers: syndromic surveillance's last mile. , 2005, MMWR supplements.

[12]  J. Marc Overhage,et al.  How Disease Surveillance Systems Can Serve as Practical Building Blocks for a Health Information Infrastructure: the Indiana Experience , 2005, AMIA.

[13]  D P Connelly,et al.  Computerized patient records in primary care. Their role in mediating guideline-driven physician behavior change. , 1995, Archives of family medicine.

[14]  S B Thacker,et al.  Public health surveillance in the United States. , 1988, Epidemiologic reviews.

[15]  John Morrissey,et al.  Health information exchange. , 2011, Hospitals & health networks.