Overview
A central challenge of public health reporting—which has become clearer during the pandemic—are differences in reporting requirements among state and federal programs and local jurisdictions and the need to respond quickly to new requirements. Working through these differences with vendors, providers, and public health agencies can be complex and burdensome.
How do we simplify it? As members of the HL7 Public Health Work Group, we help states and the larger reporting community develop and use HL7 standards to improve statewide data exchange and public health interoperability. HL7 is a nonprofit organization that provides a framework and standard for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information.
Our Approach
The HL7 Public Health Work Group is comprised of interoperability and subject matter experts from the nonprofit, private, and governmental sectors who provide support and guidance to states and other organizations using the standard.
As members of the group, we provide guidance to organizations developing and applying standards to meet new or evolving reporting requirements in areas such as population health monitoring; immunization; vital records; outbreak investigation; disease and event detection, response, and control; and reporting to regulatory and monitoring agencies.
The Work Group also provides a broader forum for discussing the interoperability needs of government agencies seeking to use health information from different sources to improve population health.
Results
Through HL7, we’re helping to advance the development and implementation of standards in a variety of areas, from population-based cancer surveillance to vital records birth and fetal death reporting. We’re giving states the guidance and tools needed to exchange information electronically, increase quality and timeliness of reporting, and reduce reporting burdens of providers and programs.
Contact Us
Laura Rappleye
Senior Director, Public Health Interoperability
Areas of Expertise- Interoperability Standards Development
- Public Health and Clinical Integration
- Health Information Exchange
Laura Rappleye 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.
Craig Newman - PhD
Public Health Interoperability Expert
Areas of Expertise- Interoperability Standards Development
- Public Health Integration
- Interoperability Education
Craig Newman develops and implements health care interoperability standards focusing on the exchange of public health data, particularly in the areas of laboratory results, immunizations, and newborn screening. He has more than 15 years of experience in health care data interoperability and has worked on behalf of both a major EHR vendor and the CDC to improve electronic data exchange and clinical decision support. Craig works extensively with HL7, the standards development organization responsible for development of the FHIR data exchange standard. He is also a co-chair of the HL7 Public Health Work Group and HL7 Version 2 Management Group. He has a bachelor's degree and a PhD in the areas of molecular and developmental biology.