Six Days Faster: Bridging the 3,000-Mile Gap in Alaskan Newborn Screening

Detor has replaced a lengthy and highly manual newborn screening process between Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in Alaska and the State Hygienic Laboratory of Iowa. Today, Detor automates the flow of data and delivers critical results six days faster. This digital transformation ensures that newborns in even the most remote areas of Alaska receive the immediate interventions they need during their most vulnerable time.

In the remote regions of Alaska, preparing for a baby’s birth is a monumental task. Expectant mothers often travel hundreds of miles over rugged terrain and through unpredictable weather, flying to Anchorage or Fairbanks weeks before their due date just to ensure they are near a birthing hospital. When the baby is born, they receive a "heel-prick"—a newborn blood spot screening—to test for approximately 40 rare metabolic and genetic conditions. These disorders can be deadly if undetected, but they are often highly treatable if caught within the first few days of life.

That sample is then sent via plane and couriered to the State Hygienic Laboratory of Iowa, which provides newborn screening services for several states, including Alaska.

The Challenge

Until recently, this newborn screening process was also burdened by extensive manual processes. The doctor or nurse who performed the screening had to hand-write clinical data—patient name, weight, sex, race, etc.—onto the paper order form, often in duplicate. Once the sample arrived in Iowa, lab staff had to transcribe that handwritten data into their system. If there was information missing or illegible, the lab had to halt the process and call the hospital to decipher information.

When the test was complete, results were sent back to the hospital as PDFs, requiring staff to manually type the results into the patient’s chart for the doctor to review and, if needed, intervene and provide care.

The manual data entry was labor intensive, time consuming, not without the potential for human error, and it took away from the primary purpose—conducting the test quickly and accurately so that the provider can administer informed care to their patient.

The Solution: Bridging the Gap with Detor

This is the story of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and the State Hygienic Laboratory of Iowa charting a new path. By migrating from a paper-based system to a fully electronic exchange, they have transformed newborn screening into a faster, safer, and more efficient process.

This is also the story of healthcare, public health, federal partners, and major technology companies working together to modernize the way that information is exchanged to positively impact patient care and public health.

And this is the story of how critical patient test results were available to providers six days faster than before, giving them the information they need to make critical decisions about their patients’ needs.

In March 2025, Fairbanks Memorial and the State Hygienic Laboratory of Iowa went live with Detor, a groundbreaking data exchange solution developed by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) with funding from the CDC. Detor enables electronic test orders and results to be shared seamlessly between public health laboratories and healthcare providers.

“This is the next step in the technical evolution for connectivity with public health laboratories nationwide,” said Bill Ormerod, Interoperability Product Manager at Oracle Health. “This hub-to-hub approach streamlines efficiency and encourages major advances in healthcare.”

The Result

For Fairbanks Memorial, Detor has eliminated the burden of manual entry. Patient demographics are now pulled directly from the source—the hospital's EHR. While the blood spot still travels by plane, the digital order arrives in Iowa instantly. This allows the lab to prepare its schedule in advance and track the sample’s arrival.

Once the lab completes the test, the result is pushed electronically through Detor and appears in the patient’s chart as soon as it is available. There are no PDFs to retrieve and no manual transcriptions to verify. Doctors no longer have to scramble to find results; the data is exactly where it needs to be.

The impact has been life changing. The migration to Detor has cut the result delivery time in half— reducing the turnaround from twelve days to just six.

The success in Alaska and Iowa is just the beginning. Since this initial launch, the State Hygienic Laboratory of Iowa has expanded Detor to Trinity Hospital in North Dakota. Because Detor is built on a reusable, standardized framework, every new connection becomes easier to establish. By modernizing this infrastructure, APHL and its partners are ensuring that no matter how remote a patient may be, their life-saving data arrives in time to make a difference.