LIC to Support Meaningful Use by Electronically Linking Hospital Labs and Public Health Agencies

LIC to Support Meaningful Use by Electronically Linking Hospital Labs and Public Health Agencies

ARLINGTON, Va. - April 21, 2011 - The Lab Interoperability Cooperative is recruiting hospitals to participate in a program that will electronically connect hospital laboratories with public health agencies. Establishing this connection will enable hundreds of hospitals to engage in electronic reporting that helps public health officials act more rapidly and efficiently to control disease. Application is open to all U.S. hospitals, including critical access hospitals located in rural parts of the United States. Hospitals interested in participating in this project may register by visiting www.labinteroperabilitycoop.org and clicking on and completing the "Phase I Checklist" by April 29, 2011.

Funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the LIC includes participation from the American Hospital Association, the College of American Pathologists and Surescripts. It is intended to help hospital labs meet criteria established by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for meaningful use of electronic health records. This criteria includes submission of electronic data on reportable laboratory results to public health agencies. During the two-year grant period, the LIC will recruit, educate and connect to the appropriate public health agencies a minimum of 500 hospital labs - at least 100 will be critical access or rural hospitals.

By engaging hospital labs, which handle the majority of lab tests in the United States, the LIC represents a unique opportunity to advance lab interoperability with public health agencies and the nation's health care system overall. The LIC will provide the necessary educational and technical assistance to enable those hospital labs selected to participate in the program to begin electronically transmitting lab results.

Electronic laboratory reporting has many benefits, including improved timeliness of reporting, reduction of manual data entry errors and reports that are more complete. Electronic laboratory reporting has been promoted as a public health priority for the past several years, and its inclusion as a meaningful use objective for public health serves as a catalyst to accelerate its adoption. While technical standards exist  to enable the electronic exchange of lab results, commercial labs, hospitals and providers have implemented and make use of these standards on a limited basis.

Based on the Surescripts Network for Clinical Interoperability, the LIC will support all federal and state policies and standards for health information exchange, including privacy and security standards (such as HIPAA and state law), technology interoperability standards (such as Direct), and message types such as HL7.

For more information on the LIC, visit www.labinteroperabilitycoop.org.

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About the AHA
The AHA is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate or its members, which includes 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 37,000 individual members. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more
information, visit the AHA Web site at www.aha.org.

About CAP STS
CAP STS (SNOMED Terminology Solutions™), a division of the College of American
Pathologists (CAP), offers clients services and solutions related to health IT strategy and planning; clinical health information management; and health care standards. CAP STS works with provider organizations, hospitals, health IT vendors, health information exchange initiatives, universities, research centers, and government agencies throughout the world. CAP STS' DIHIT (Diagnostic Intelligence and Health Information Technology) team advances health IT standards, practices, and tools, such as the CAP Diagnostic Work Station initiative; and standardized electronic reporting, including the CAP electronic Cancer Checklists (CAP eCC).

The College of American Pathologists is a medical society serving more than 17,000 physician members and the laboratory community throughout the world. It is the world's largest association composed exclusively of board-certified pathologists and is widely considered the leader in laboratory quality assurance. The College is an advocate for high-quality and cost-effective patient care. For more information, visit www.capsts.org or write to capsts@cap.org.

About Surescripts
The Surescripts network supports the most comprehensive ecosystem of health care organizations nationwide. Pharmacies, payers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), physicians, hospitals, health information exchanges and health technology firms rely on Surescripts to more easily and securely share health information. Guided by the principles of neutrality, transparency, physician and patient choice, open standards, collaboration and privacy, Surescripts operates the nation's largest health information network. By providing information for routine, recurring and emergency care, Surescripts is committed to saving lives, improving efficiency and reducing the cost of health care for all. For more information, go to www.surescripts.com and follow us at twitter.com/surescripts.

Press Contacts:

Matthew Fenwick
AHA
312-422-2820
mfenwick@aha.org

Candace Robertson
CAP STS
847-832-7764
crobertson@cap.org

Rob Cronin
Surescripts
917-414-5289
rob.cronin@surescripts.com