CDC Safety Network
CDC Selects Lantana Consulting Group to Support National Healthcare Safety Network
Reporting of Healthcare Associated Infections to Expand with EHR Data Standards
February 17, 2012 — Lantana Consulting Group received a five-year, up to $7.5 million award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide consulting and technical services for the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) electronic reporting infrastructure.
The NHSN collects information on Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) from over 5000 hospitals as part of the CDC’s HAI Surveillance and Prevention program. The CDC has plans to rapidly increase the number of reporting sites within the next two and a half years and to expand the breadth of data report types.
“NHSN is leading the way in EHR-based reporting on a national scale. With this award, we can support implementation by hospitals, dialysis centers and long term care facilities, leveraging their investment in electronic records,” said Liora Alschuler, Lantana Group’s CEO.
“What we seek to accomplish in our work with Lantana Consulting, EHR system (EHRs) suppliers, and health care partners, is to speed up the transition from manual to electronic reporting of HAI data to NHSN. Rapid escalation is made possible through adoption of uniform data reporting standards that are compatible with EHRs,” said Dr. Dan Pollock, surveillance branch chief in CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “Our early investment in use of the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) exchange specification for HAI reporting has proved to be a pivotal strategic decision. Use of CDA has eased the reporting burden for providers and established a solid foundation for expansion of the network.”
“This is a signal project for clinical data reuse from electronic health records,” said Dr. Bob Dolin, Lantana president and chief medical officer. “Use of the CDA standard for HAI reporting is an excellent example of how standards can be leveraged to reap additional returns on investments in EHR systems.”
The Lantana staff led by Dolin and Alschuler designs and implements standards-based interoperability solutions. Dolin, Alschuler and Lantana staff and are co-editors of the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture, the Continuity of Care Document and the Healthcare Quality Measure Format, all of which are foundational for this work