Reducing Data Reporting Burden

Why the effort matters

Strengthening the core of public health data is a primary public health data goal.

When healthcare data are shared faster, the nation can more quickly respond to public health threats to protect health and improve lives. Use of electronic case reporting reduces the reporting burden on hospitals and healthcare providers. And it gets data to state, tribal, local and territorial (STLT) public health departments as fast as possible.

A milestone in the 2023 Public Health Data Strategy focused on increasing coverage of electronic case reporting among Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs). The goal was to better understand public health threats in rural communities and across the nation.

Achieving this milestone would reduce the data reporting burden for the hospitals. It would also enable STLT public health departments and CDC programs to more quickly identify disease trends in rural communities. And CAHs would save money by avoiding a downward payment adjustment based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Promoting Interoperability Program rules.1

Key outcomes

At the end of 2023, seventy-six additional CAHs across 24 states were able to send electronic case reports to their public health departments. That made a total of 380 CAHs using eCR, representing faster reporting of healthcare data for over 1.8 million Americans.

What partners are saying

“Using eCR saved our healthcare organization almost $700,000 and 21,900 provider hours over a one-year period compared with manually reporting COVID-19 cases.”
– Dr. Marcus Speaker, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, Carilion Clinic