The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is improving the complicated job of public health disease surveillance. CDC is launching a new CDC Surveillance Strategy that will:

• Improve data timeliness, availability, and quality

• Advance the use of electronic health records, mobile technologies, and cloud computing

• Identify and amend or retire outdated or redundant CDC surveillance systems

• Maximize the effectiveness of available agency resources devoted to surveillance.

Four initiatives are underway to achieve the goals of the CDC Surveillance Strategy:

1. Accelerating Standardization of Health Data and Data Exchange Systems

The Nationally Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) Modernization Initiative will implement priority Message Mapping Guides (MMG) so that 90% of data reported through NNDSS will use standard HL7 message formatting.

2. Enhancing use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems

CDC’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program is enhancing applications and analysis tools to improve public health situational awareness of health threats through improved use of electronic health record (EHR) data. These applications and tools enable rapid exchange of information and coordinated responses among health officials.

3. Accelerating Electronic Lab Reporting (ELR)

ELR can improve public health surveillance for reportable disease and conditions by speeding up reporting time in a more complete and accurate format.

4. Modernizing Mortality Surveillance Systems

This initiative will transition the current death registry system to electronic reporting of death records sent to CDC within 10 days of the event.

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Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library collection