Christina Gallegos

My favorite place on earth is Iceland. The people are so friendly and welcoming and the volcanic terrain makes you feel like you’re on another planet entirely.

My favorite place is the Oregon coast because my daughter loves the beach and can spend hours playing and chasing the waves.

My favorite place in the world right now is Sedona, Arizona. The red rock canyons are breathtaking, the weather is just right, and it is a very serene.  

My favorite places are bookstores (specifically used bookstores). I love to wander around, read book jackets, and bring home some unusual finds. A few of my favorites in Chicago are after-words, Open Books, and Semicolon.

My favorite places to go are bed and breakfasts. The inns are usually so cozy, the breakfasts are yummy, and it's always nice to get away, even for one or two nights.

The Maldives would have to be my favorite place. Between the crystal blue waters, marine life and white beaches it’s pretty much paradise.

My favorite place in the world is New Orleans. It has great food, and drinks. The people are friendly and nice. A lot of musical history.

My favorite place is sitting at a nice beer garden with great friends on a sunny day with nothing to do!

My favorite place on earth is my ranch, because I have all my family (two and four legged) right here and get to see them every day, if I want to

The beach - walking along the water, lazy days reading and enjoying good food!

Lake Michigan - I love hiking the dunes, reading on the beach, paddle boarding, watching the dogs splash around, or enjoying a meal next to the water.

My favorite place is Barcelona. It has a little bit of everything, delicious food, beautiful beaches, and amazing architecture.

St. George Island, FL. I love camping within walking distance of the beach!

My favorite place is wherever my family is and right now that is Baltimore, MD, and I’m loving it.

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India is one of my favorite places. I loved all of the amazing food and hiking through some of the most beautiful scenery in the Himalayas.

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Chania, Greece is my favorite city/place. It is located on the Crete island. A small city surrounded by mountains. I love Greek culture, the food is amazing, narrow European streets and beautiful beaches. Lots of fresh fruits that you can pick from right from the trees.

I have too many favorites but my top 5 are: Machu Picchu, Vienna, Phnom Penh, Munich, and the Amalfi Coast. I love them all for different reasons, but they are all places that I would happily return to!

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My favorite place is Northeast Florida because my wife lives here.

Add your favorite place on earth (and why)

My favorite place in the world is Corpus Christi. It has great beaches and fishing. The ocean is so relaxing.

My favorite place on earth is in the mountains, enjoying the views and taking in a beautiful sunrise or sunset. I love the peaceful scenery and stillness.

<Add your favorite place on earth (and why)>

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The APHL Technical Assistance Team works with laboratory, technical and epidemiology Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), both remotely and on-site, to assist in the following areas. The Vocabulary Team specifically focuses on areas 2 and 3.

1. Project management and business analysis: Identifying needed resources, risks and dependences for electronic messaging.

2. Data standards expertise: Working closely with laboratorians, SME staff and IT administrators to harmonize testing and resulting terminology to incorporate nationally recognized electronic data standards into the LIMS workflow.

3. Assistance with workflow analysis: Helping laboratory and epidemiology SMEs understand how, when and why to use standard codes like LOINC and SNOMED.

4. Hands-on technical architectural expertise: Implementing technical solutions that address data exchange needs.

Members of the Vocabulary team also support the needs of APHL members and their partners by engaging in Standards Development Activities related to laboratory and public health initiatives/projects; provding input for new content and updates of existing specifications and vocabulary artifacts.

LINKS

Sharepoint Core Vocab Library: https://www.aphlweb.org/aphl_departments/Strategic_Initiatives_and_Research/IPMG/AIC/SitePages/Home.aspx

Category

Project Name (click the project name to view its Confluence page)

Brief Project Description

Primary Terminologist(s)

Secondary Terminologist(s)

Reporting to CDC

Antibiotics Resistance Laboratory Network (ARLN)

ARLN - DHQP HL7 Transition

Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) is to protect patients; protect healthcare personnel; and promote safety, quality, and value in both national and international healthcare delivery systems. APHL will provide technical assistance and guidance to all labs within the AR Lab Network throughout this through cohort groups to support message implementation

Amanda/Jamie

Andrea

ARLN - ETOR/LWP

Supporting regional ARLN informatics needs and reliable result reporting between originating submitters and ARLN PHLs using an Electronic Test Order and Result (ETOR) or Lab Web Portal (LWP) solution .

Susan

Riki

ARLN - Regional Labs

APHL Informatics supports nationwide lab capacity to rapidly detect antibiotic resistance and inform local responses to prevent spread and protect people.

Amanda

Riki

COVID-19 Electronic Lab Reporting (CELR)

CELR represents the effort to onboard jurisdictions to the AIMS platform in order to transmit all line-level positive and negative test results, via HL7 or CSV, with an end goal of daily transmission.

Emily/Riki

Natalie/Amanda

Emerging Infections Program (EIP) EIP/Foodnet

The Emerging Infections Program (EIP) prevents and controls infectious diseases by providing the highest quality scientific information to monitor emergency problems, evaluate public health interventions, and inform policy. ***https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dpei/eip/

Foodnet - provides a foundation for food safety policy and prevention efforts.  ***https://www.cdc.gov/foodnet/index.html

Natalie

Amanda/Grace/Pam

National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System Modernization Initiative (NMI)

The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) is a nationwide collaboration that enables all levels of public health—local, state, territorial, federal, and international—to share notifiable disease-related health information. Public health uses this information to monitor, control, and prevent the occurrence and spread of state-reportable and national notifiable infectious and noninfectious diseases and conditions and outbreaks.

Natalie/Grace

Amanda/Karrie

Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project (PHLIP)

APHL’s Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project (PHLIP) is strengthening collaboration within the public health laboratory community. Sharing laboratory data is essential for public health reporting and planning, and crucial in responding to outbreaks, events and emerging health threats. The PHLIP effort furthers the goal of nationwide electronic laboratory data exchange—a major priority for public health and homeland security.

Amy/Jamie

Riki

Rabies

Rabies is a virus that infects wildlife in the United States, especially bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes. It can spread to people and pets when they are bitten or scratched by a rabid animal. Without treatment, rabies almost always causes death. ***https://www.cdc.gov/dotw/rabies/

Christina

Riki

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD)

To address issues of morbidity from vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) and diminished diagnostic capacity, CDC and APHL have established VPD Reference Laboratories in California, New York, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. These laboratories conduct diagnostic testing on specimens from states and CDC and send VPD results, both positive and negative, to CDC as an ELSM data feed.

Amy/Jamie

Riki

Reporting to registries

Cancer Reporting (NAACCR IG Version 5 - HL7v2.5.1)

Public health central cancer registry data are used for surveillance, development of comprehensive cancer control programs, and healthcare planning and interventions. Improved accuracy and completeness of cancer surveillance data impacts all areas of public health interventions. ***https://www.cdc.gov/phin/resources/guides/documents/Implementation_Guide_for_Ambulatory_Healthcare_Provider_Reporting_to_Central_Cancer_Registries_March_2014.pdf

Jamie

Riki

Lab use cases

Enterprise Laboratory Information Management System (ELIMS)**

ELIMS is the CDC’s in house Laboratory Information Management System.

Jamie

Electronic Test Order-Results Reporting (ETOR)

Standards based ETOR - creating a centralized solution for PHLs to connect with their clinical partners

Riki/Ruslan

Melissa / Christina

Laboratory Messaging CoP (LabMCoP)

A forum for laboratorians to discuss stadnardization and messagign issues of any lab use case.

For example a longstanding project of this group is the Specimen Cross Mapping table, which was started in 2009 and was organized as working group under a CDC Community of Practice (CoP) called Laboratory Messaging CoP (LabMCoP) ***https://www.cdc.gov/cliac/docs/addenda/cliac0813/21_Cornish_LABCoPCLIAC82213_v.508.pdf

Riki

Amy/Christina

Systemic Harmonization and Interoperability Enhancement for Laboratory Data (SHIELD)

Public Private collaboration to with the mission to “name the same test the same way every time across the healthcare continuum”.

Riki

Christina

Reporting to Public Health Agencies (PHAs)

Electronic Case Reporting (eCR)

In 2019, a new data flow, Electronic Case Reporting (eCR), came online and eCR implementation has accelerated due to expanded case reporting requirements for COVID-19. eCR involves the automated generation and transmission of case reports from Electronic Health Records (EHRs) from clinical care systems to public health agencies (PHAs) for review and action. The AIMS platform hosts key components supporting the eCR flow between clinical care providers and PHAs.***https://www.aphl.org/rfp/Documents/INF-AIMS-eCR-Scalability-Resilience-120920.pdf#search=Electronic Case Reporting (eCR)

not on this team

Riki

Electronic Laboratory Reporting Technical Assistance (ELRTA)

This program allows jurisdictions to request technical assistance from APHL.  Some examples of these requests are help with mapping new tests to LOINC or SNOMED or help with creating a new PLT/PLR code when a LOINC or SNOMED code isn’t available.

Pam

Amy/Jamie

Opioids (ELR)

Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) supports disease surveillance and response capabilities of the public health community and is a key component of meaningful use.

??

Labcorp ELR

Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) supports disease surveillance and response capabilities of the public health community and is a key component of meaningful use. - setting up connection with Labcorp to all AIMS partners.

Melissa

Quest ELR

Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) supports disease surveillance and response capabilities of the public health community and is a key component of meaningful use. - setting up connection with Quest to all AIMS partners for lab and cancer reporting.

Riki/Jamie

Tooling**

National Flatfile (NNF) HL7 Generator

The National Flat File HL7 Generator is a macro-enabled excel file that converts csv format into HL7 V2.5.1 ELR R1 spciefication compliant message files, that can then be sent to PHAs - developed for submitting COVID-19 results to public health, this tool should be usable for ANY ELR condition. https://aphlinformatics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CRL/pages/1468334124

Amy

Pam/Riki

Implementation Guide Authoring & Management Tool (IGAMT)/Test Case Authoring & Mangement Tool (TCAMT) / General Validation Tool (GVT)

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created tools that support the creation of HL7 v2 based implementation guides and their conformance profiles (IGAMT), which can then be used to create the context-free validation in the GVT. The TCAMT provides authors with the capability to create a suite of test messages for onboarding of that same implementation guide, which can then be used in the context-based validation of the GVT, effectively creating a testing suite.

Jamie/Amy/Christina

Amanda/Amy/Pam

Terminology Services Development

Working with Clinical Architecture to set up maintance for PLT and APHL SNOMED CT namespace extension; build capacity to use this for production of project specific encoding guidelines; build capacity to house the LIVD file content; build capacity to support partner adaptive workflow use to review mappings.

Jamie/Amy/Christina/Melissa

Riki

Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System (RCKMS)

For this project, reportable conditions are those for which reports: Are based on individual cases or individual laboratory tests/results. Are about human subjects (not animals, drugs or devices). Contain personally identifiable information, including person names. Are governed by jurisdictional law (statute or rule/regulation).

Will include information about the who, what, when, where, and how of reportable condition reporting.

https://www.aphl.org/conferences/proceedings/Documents/2012/Annual-Meeting/078-Altamore_Merrick.pdf#search=Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System

Susan

Value Set Authority Center (VSAC)

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides the VSAC as a repository for value sets in support of meaningful use certification. See here for more info: https://vsac.nlm.nih.gov/

More info on meaningful use / ONC certification of EHR systems:

Susan

Emily

Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Vocabulary Access and Distribution Service (VADS)

CDC manages PHIN VADS - it is a good one-stop-shop for code systems and value sets related to public health reporting of any kind, including the 2 code systems APHL maintains as interim public health lab standards: Public Health Lab Test (PLT) and Public Health Lab Result (PLR). For more info see here: https://phinvads.cdc.gov/vads/SearchHome.action

Jamie

Christina

OID Management

Assigning organizational or system OIDs to support our partners on various projects. In some cases we assign a “Fake CLIA” number to support data processing on the PHA side. https://aphlinformatics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CRL/pages/1454899212

Amy

Riki

Standards Development**

Health Level 7 (HL7)

Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven International (HL7) is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services.

http://www.hl7.org/

Christina/Riki

Emily/Susan/Amanda/Natalie/Christina

Logical Observation Identifiers, Names and Codes (LOINC)

Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes. This coding standard for observations used in HL7 messages includes codes for laboratory tests, clinical measurements, and other observations. LOINC is developed by the Regenstrief Institute at the University of Indiana. http://www.loinc.org

Jamie

Susan

Systematized NOmenclature of MEDicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT)

Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms is a comprehensive clinical healthcare terminology. It is the most recent version of SNOMED, which has been in use since 1977. SNOMED CT was originally developed by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and is now developed by IHTSDO. http://www.ihtsdo.org/snomed-ct/

Jamie

Susan

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)

IHE is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively.

https://www.ihe.net/

Riki

LOINC In Vitro Diagnostic (LIVD)

The LIVD specification outlines an industry-defined format to facilitate the publication and exchange of LOINC codes for vendor IVD test results, based on either vendor IVD test transmission codes or manual test identification, for use by laboratory personnel or laboratory applications. see: https://www.cdc.gov/cliac/docs/addenda/cliac0418/15a_IICC_LAW_and_LIVD_Handout.pdf

For the COVID-19 file see here: https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/sars-cov-2-livd-codes.html

Christina/Riki