We're accepting new feeds for electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) from hospitals. ELR provides advantages to hospitals other than meaningful use attestation, including improved efficiency through reduced manual entry for laboratory technicians and infection control professionals, and increased timeliness and completeness of reporting, which improves health outcomes and reduces time required to follow up and complete case reports.
- Registration
Laboratories wishing to onboard for ELR must register their intent to attest should complete the Meaningful Use Registration Form. Or, if labs are wishing to onboard for ELR but not attest for meaningful use, they should declare this intent via email to our ELR coordinator: CDPHE_ELR@state.co.us. - Pre-testing
The onboarding laboratories will review the vocabulary and messaging standards and reporting requirements. They'll generate and validate test messages using a standard tool, submitting the results to us. - Initial submission
Once your agency is ready to generate messages with the required standards, a test message will be sent using one of the secure methods. We\'ll validate this HL7 message. Completion of Step 3 meets meaningful use Stage 1 attestation requirements. - In-queue
If the laboratory is ready to submit ongoing results, but we\'re not prepared to perform the validation, the laboratory may be placed on a waiting list for ongoing submission and validation. Facilities placed in the queue can attest for meaningful use Stage 2, if that's their goal. - Validation
Once your HL7 message has been validated and a secure method of transfer has been successfully tested, ongoing production level data will be transferred from your system on at least a daily basis (weekdays only). These messages will be evaluated for vocabulary standards. The reports received will be matched against disease reports received from your facility from traditional methods. - Production and ongoing validation
Once we\'re satisfied that your decision engine is appropriately flagging and reporting all reportable conditions, we'll certify your feed and move your ELR feed into production. At this time, your facility can cease its previous method of reporting conditions based only on a laboratory results.
Note: Onboarding facilities should allow nine to 12 months to complete this process.
Messaging and vocabulary standards
- Standards for new feeds are the same as meaningful use Stage 2 requirements.
- Note that for meaningful use Stage 1, HL7 2.3.1 is acceptable and SNOMED CT isn\'t required.
- Messaging standard: HL7 2.5.1.
- Tests: LOINC V2.27.
- Results: SNOMED CT.