Overview
Our data surveillance system services and data quality validation tools help public health agencies limit the spread of infectious disease and foodborne illness. We do this by helping states and jurisdictions accurately and comprehensively capture and share information about disease outbreaks between health care providers and public health agencies.
Our Approach
We partnered with epidemiologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and clinicians to design and develop a monitoring system for the state of Michigan that provides public health officials with the ability to access a rich set of case investigation data in a common format; generate over a dozen reports with the data, including visualizations; and export the data to standardized analytical software tools to perform epidemiological studies. Additionally, we created a validation tool to continuously monitor the incoming data from health care providers to ensure patient information is reported accurately and completely.
Results
The system we created, the Michigan Disease Surveillance System (MDSS), was specifically designed to receive laboratory reports for confirmed cases of infectious diseases. Laboratory reports make it possible for public health officials to identify and respond to outbreaks quickly. It has been central to Michigan’s coronavirus response. The system is processing and validating 40,000 laboratory reports a day. MDSS electronic laboratory reporting capabilities has allowed Michigan to be ranked a top state in making coronavirus data available.
Contact Us
Laura Rappleye
Deputy Director, Connected Health
Areas of Expertise- Interoperability Standards Development
- Public Health and Clinical Integration
- Health Information Exchange
Laura has 20 years of experience planning and implementing health IT solutions in public health and clinical care settings. She specializes in advancing population health through integrating clinical and public health data sets. Laura has led the creation of standardized implementation guides and automated data quality assurance and validation tools for the state of Michigan. Laura serves as a co-chair for the Health Level Seven (HL7) Public Health Work Group.