State Public Health Data Reporting Policies and Practices Vary Widely
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Associated Project
Key Findings
- Each state has unique needs and capacities. There is no single approach to modernizing public health data, but jurisdictions can still learn from each other and adopt common approaches and solutions.
- Federal and state agencies that govern public health data can do more to improve reporting by enabling and encouraging health care providers to meet requirements, rather than through enforcement.
- State public health officials commonly cited staffing shortages, outdated IT infrastructure, and inadequate funding as the reasons for not investing in modern IT systems and expert staff to collect, analyze, and use electronic data.
- Positive signs demonstrate that more case reports can be automated and electronic, as opposed to manually transmitted via fax and phone. This will help improve the timeliness and accuracy of the data that public health agencies need to detect and prevent diseases more effectively.
When public health agencies lack access to clinical data, illnesses spread undetected, the health system becomes overburdened, and health care costs, illnesses, and deaths rise. By collecting and analyzing better data, public health agencies can more effectively identify and prevent the spread of emerging threats; anticipate surges of illnesses and deploy resources where they are needed most; identify communities that are disproportionately threatened by disease and lack access to care; and design more effective and equitable interventions.
Policies and practices designed to drive automated electronic reporting vary among providers and states. To modernize public health data, federal and state policymakers, public health officials, health care providers, and health IT developers need a baseline understanding of how jurisdictions are regulating and promoting automated electronic reporting.
Pew contracted with Mathematica to review and catalog policies regarding the use of electronic data exchange in case reporting, lab reporting, syndromic surveillance, and immunization information systems in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. To validate the findings of the policy scan and gain practitioners’ perspectives on challenges and opportunities related to improving public health data reporting, Mathematica interviewed 266 state epidemiologists, immunization registry managers, informatics managers, health department legal counsels, and other public health officials in 48 jurisdictions between October 2022 and April 2023.
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