Making use of electronic data: The National Healthcare Safety Network eSurveillance Initiative

Efforts are underway at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to foster greater use of electronic data stored in health care application databases for surveillance of health care-associated infections and antimicrobial use and resistance. These efforts, referred to as the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) eSurveillance Initiative, focus on standards-based solutions for conveying health care data and validation processes to confirm that the data received at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention accurately reflect the data transmitted by health care facilities. Standard vehicles for data transmission, specifically Health Level Seven standards for electronic messages and structured documents, and standard vocabularies for representing microorganisms and other information needed for surveillance, are central features of the eSurveillance initiative. Progress to date in this initiative is reviewed, and future project plans are outlined. Enhanced interoperability between health care and public health information systems is achievable for surveillance purposes, but major challenges must be overcome to realize the full benefits sought by the eSurveillance initiative.