Lab Interoperability Cooperative Now Recruiting Nation's Hospital Laboratories
Thursday, April 21, 2011
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
