Written by Datapult
POV: A foundation for modernized laboratory reporting
Laboratory reporting is mandated by each state. And while electronic laboratory reporting capability is ubiquitous across the U.S. via the HL7 v2.5.1 standard, onboarding backlogs remain. Reporting speed—while maintaining control over the quality of data—is a priority for public health.
Reporting is complex and requires time and resources
These backlogs are due to the number of entities establishing individual connections with public health and the varying validity of that data. To address the issue of “low” data quality, public health departments apply stringent onboarding requirements to ensure that files are formatted correctly and contain the minimum required data. This validation process is iterative and can take time. Public health departments can only concurrently onboard so many entities and depending on persisting data quality issues or formatting discrepancies, a laboratory may be in the queue for more than six months. Laboratories that report to more than one jurisdiction may have many different interfaces to establish—each with its own iterative cycles of validation to manage. The complexity is overwhelming.
Datapult brings scale and speed to public health reporting
One side of the solution is to consolidate these interfaces into the fewest connection points possible; the other side is to use a single, uniform format that is stringently validated in-line. Since 2020, Datapult has operated an ELR service that does just this: allows high-quality data delivery to any public health department with only one connection.
Datapult quickly onboarded and delivered COVID-19 test results with an average of six weeks from kickoff to go-live. Over 40 organizations were connected to 57 public health disease surveillance systems between August 2020 and December 2021. Datapult’s hub saw 300,000 test results transmitted in a single day across these 57 public health agencies with an average of 5 million messages per month between December 2021 and March 2022 during the Omicron surge.
Figure 1: An illustrative view of Datapult’s enhanced Expanded ELR hub and automated validation
A key takeaway from the COVID-19 pandemic was the creation of one HL7 v2.5.1 file format that reflects the requirements and constraints of all public health agencies, and this format continues to be valid and applies to the reporting of any laboratory test result.
This ELR hub created for scale and speed was tested during the 2022 mpox outbreak. Several of Datapult’s existing data senders quickly added mpox test results to their data streams. The existing hub and the uniform HL7 v2.5.1 message format allowed for delivery as soon as data was released from the laboratory.
That same year, Datapult enhanced this hub to support scale and speed for public health reporting more broadly, beyond COVID-19 and mpox. Our hub now automates data validation and reflects the specific laboratory reporting requirements across analytes for each public health department. We also provide a user interface to simplify term mapping between locally used codes and identifiers to standard health data codes, like LOINC and SNOMED CT.
Achieve reporting scale and speed with one connection
Datapult has the only data exchange hub built exclusively for sending high-quality data from laboratories to public health. We specialize in facilitating interoperability between systems, and our team of experts with first-hand expertise in public health informatics designs implements, and manages tools and resources for high-quality data solutions nationwide.
