Reimagining Lab Reporting: A Lab+APHL Business Ecosystem Partnership

The Problem:

Diagnostic laboratories are required by law to report certain test results to public health agencies. Understanding and complying with reporting requirements is burdensome for labs, who collectively spend an estimated $3.5B each year on public health reporting. Moreover, the data received by public health agencies is incomplete and inconsistent, impeding their ability to conduct disease surveillance.

The Vision:

Simplifying laboratory reporting processes would save time and money, while at the same time improving the quality and completeness of our nation’s public health surveillance data.

How It Works Now:

There are 64 different public health jurisdictions in the U.S., each with unique and occasionally updated reporting requirements. To remain compliant with reporting laws and regulations, each lab must know which diseases are reportable to each jurisdiction, maintain capabilities to send test results to each jurisdiction, and monitor each jurisdiction’s reporting requirements for changes. This workflow is highly inefficient, as it must be replicated by hundreds of thousands of diagnostic testing facilities across the country.

How It Could Work:

Rather than establishing reporting capabilities to all 64 jurisdictions, diagnostic facilities could report test results to a single intermediary (APHL), which in turn routes the data to the appropriate jurisdiction and to the CDC. This workflow would vastly improve the quality and completeness of our nation’s public health surveillance data.

Ecosystem Impact:

• For Laboratories: Simplified reporting processes would be a huge time-saver for labs, resulting in a cost savings of nearly $3.4B per year.

• For Public Health Agencies: Higher quality and more complete data would enable public health agencies to better monitor trends, detect outbreaks, and evaluate interventions.

• For the Public: Enhanced disease surveillance capabilities would make individuals and communities safer.