PHA TA Projects
- Melanie Kourbage
- Heather Houston
This list of projects and experience is intended as a primer for CSTE staff to learn more about how APHL Technical Assistance supports PHAs through our projects.
Projects
APHL Technical Assistance teams engage with public health agencies on a number of projects. Our support ranges from project management and coordination to tool development, standards and terminology, data integration (Rhapsody, Mirth), transport, architecting, data management, and data import/export. Our teams have worked with every State PHA, as well as many local and territorial jurisdictions. The technical assistance team possesses expertise in various surveillance systems, e.g., NBS, Maven, and EpiTrax, and demonstrates the ability to quickly familiarize themselves with custom-built systems to meet the needs of each jurisdiction. We deliver TA via one-on-one engagements and through cohorts; our engagements can be a single meeting, or recurring work sessions over the course of several months.
Project Title | Description |
|---|---|
eCR Direct Support (DS) | PHAs can submit a request for technical assistance on any aspect of the eCR data workflow. Since 2022, we have supported PHAs to implement eCR while simultaneously developing eCR tools that are scalable nationally to enhance eCR data workflows. To date, 36 states, 7 local jurisdictions, 3 tribal governments, and 1 territory have submitted 125 requests for TA. There are currently 8 DS projects underway: DC, SD, CA, WI, HI, WA, NC, MO, and KY. |
NNDSS | We assist Jurisdictions through MMG implementation to facilitate sending case notification data to CDC; we are supporting all jurisdictions using all different types of surveillance systems including WorldCare, Maven, EpiTrax, NBS, and custom developed systems; our table-driven Rhapsody route is in production in more than a dozen jurisdictions, and we have worked with Maven jurisdictions on PHDC exports |
ELRTA | PHAs can submit a request for technical assistance to implement and advance ELR with diverse messaging partners |
Quest ELR & Cancer Reporting | We have implemented secure transport of Electronic Reportable Diseases and Cancer Registry data in HL7 2.5.1 format from Quest labs to all state PHAs via the AIMS Platform; this project is nearly complete |
LabCorp ELR & Cancer Reporting | We are implementing secure transport of Electronic Reportable Diseases and Cancer Registry data in HL7 2.5.1 format from LabCorp labs to all state PHAs via the AIMS Platform; this project is just launching |
Pathology Labs Cancer Registry Reporting | We are implementing electronic cancer registry reporting from private pathology labs to state, DC, and U.S. Territories via the AIMS Platform |
Skills & Expertise
We have technical architects and data integration engineers on the team with extensive experience using Rhapsody and Mirth for a variety of public health use cases.
We have multiple epis, developers, and terminologists who have worked as NBS administrators at the federal, state, and local level, and many of our or TA engagements with jurisdictions have involved import/export of data from NBS and working with resources from NBS Central. Where necessary, we coordinate closely with the CDC NBS team.
We also have access to folks on our technical assistance teams who are Maven power users and have worked both at the local and state level and for Conduent. We have developed and tested PHDC files as part of multiple TA engagements.
We have HL7 and terminology experts who help jurisdictions perform gap analyses and data mappings for eCR, MMGs, and other use cases.