With a mission of strengthening laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the United States and globally, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) also enables electronic case reporting (eCR) capabilities.

eCR is the automated generation and transmission of case reports from electronic health records to public health agencies for review and action. Essentially, it reduces the burden on healthcare providers to accomplish their reporting requirements to public health and improves the timeliness and completeness of case reports at the local, state, and national levels.

eCR is a joint effort of APHL, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and CDC.

According to the CDC, eCR runs behind the scenes in the EHR to automatically capture and report required information. If information entered in the EHR matches codes of interest to public health, the data necessary for a public health report are sent to the platform. If the data meets jurisdictional reporting requirements, the report is sent to the appropriate public health agencies for investigation and follow-up.

Last year, the ONC reported that EHR developers rapidly integrated an automated eCR solution into their products to promote public health efforts in this midst of the COVI-19 pandemic. This was based on CDC’s and APHL’s app called eCR Now, which enables the rapid adoption of eCR for COVID-19.

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