• Electronic Lab Reporting (ELR)
• Electronic Case Reporting (eCR)
• DC Provider Portal (web-based case reporting)
• Syndromic surveillance reporting
• Immunization registry reporting
• Cancer registry reporting

About eCR

Electronic case reporting (eCR) is the automated real-time exchange of case report information between electronic health records (EHRs) and public health agencies.

Declaration of Readiness

DC Health began accepting registrations of intent for eCR from eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals in December 2020. This page serves as a declaration of readiness regarding the agency’s preparedness with respect to eCR.

The District of Columbia uses the HL7 electronic initial case report (eICR) standards (R1.1 and R3.1) for electronic case reporting (eCR) and to support the new CMS Promoting Interoperability regulations for eCR. It is these standards that we will use to eventually eliminate manual reporting requirements. We also require the use of APHL AIMS and the Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) to ensure appropriate reporting. 

Promoting Interoperability (formerly Meaningful Use (MU): Public Health Reporting

• Sign-up or register to submit electronic data to District of Columbia’s public health agency on immunizations, cancer, syndromic surveillance, and reportable lab results.
   

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is authorized to make incentive payments to eligible professionals and eligible hospitals demonstrating meaningful use of certified Electronic Health Recording (EHR) technology.

"Meaningful Use" means providers need to show they're using certified EHR  technology in specific ways that can be measured significantly in quality and in quantity.

Public Health Requirements:

In July 2010, CMS released the meaningful use final rule, which included specific objectives for professionals and hospitals.  Eligible health professionals and hospitals must meet a series of 15 core objectives and at least five of 10 menu set objectives (hospitals only need to meet 14, which e-prescribing does not apply to them in stage 1). Examples of core objectives include using the certified EHR technology to:  record patient demographics, maintain patient diagnoses, maintain patient medication and allergy lists, and generate and transmit electronic prescriptions.

Although providers have flexibility in choosing menu set options, one of the five must be specific to public health. The public health objectives include submitting electronic data to public health agencies on immunizations, syndromic surveillance, and reportable lab results.

Steps for Meaningful Use Testing

Immunization

• To meet this objective, an eligible provider or eligible hospital must perform at least one test of the certified EHR capacity to submit electronic data to an immunization registry (IIS).
• Ongoing submissions of data are encouraged if the test is successful.
• Successful submissions to IIS are:
  • generated by certified EHR technology
  • standard format HL7 version 2.5.1 specifications

Objectives to be met:

Syndromic Surveillance

• To meet this objective, an eligible hospital must perform at least one test of the certified EHR capacity to submit reportable laboratory results to the PHA (ESSENCE).
• Ongoing submissions of data are encouraged if the test is successful.
• Successful submissions to ESSENCE are:
  • generated by certified EHR technology and
  • standard format HL7 version 2.5.1 specifications.

 Electronic Laboratory Reporting  

• To meet this objective, an eligible hospital must perform at least one test of the certified EHR capacity to submit reportable laboratory results to the PHA.
• Ongoing submissions of data are encouraged if the test is successful.
• Successful submissions to ELR are:
  • generated by certified EHR technology
  • standard format HL7 version 2.5.1 specifications
  • LOINC and SNOMET CT codes as data content standard. 

Cancer Registry Reporting　

• To meet this objective, an eligible provider or eligible hospital must perform at least one test of the certified EHR capacity to submit reportable cancer data to the PHA.
• Ongoing submissions of data are encouraged if the test is successful 
• Successful submissions to Cancer Registry are: generated by certified EHR technology
  • generated by certified EHR technology
  • Standard format HL7 CDA, Release 2 specifications

Public Health Agencies (PHAs) need to perform four (4) administrative tasks. 
These processes are for the benefit of eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals that intend to meet (MU) public health objectives:

PHA (4) Administrative Task

1. Publicize what MU objectives the PHA will support and share this information with the proposed Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) centralized PHA capacity repository (Declaration of Readiness process),
2. Register Providers that plan to submit public health data to a PHA for MU objectives (Registration of Intent process),
3. Test and validate on-going data submissions from Providers (On-Boarding process),  
4. Provide written communication(s) (which may be in electronic format) to Providers that have achieved ongoing submission of data relevant to public health for MU objectives. (Acknowledgements process).

Select to sign up or register for incentives?

To sign up to register to submit electronic data, select District to Columbia's public health agency on immunizations, syndromic surveillance, cancer, and reportable lab results  

Additional Information

•  CMS Meaningful Use web site
•  ONC web site