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NEWS FROM CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE

March 1 , 2007

Cambridge Health Alliance First in Massachusetts to Implement Electronic Laboratory Reporting

Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford, Revere, Somerville, Winthrop, MA Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) announced today that it is the first hospital system to implement electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) of communicable diseases to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH).

CHA lab medicine and information system specialists, led by Mary Calia, IT applications manager, and Charlotte Silas, an applications analyst, coordinated with MDPH to implement the ELR methodology for all three of CHA's hospital campuses: The Cambridge Hospital, Somerville Hospital, and Whidden Memorial Hospital. With MDPH's hands-on training and assistance, CHA built a translation table which takes the unique local codes for test, organisms, and specimen sources and converts them to industry standard codes. The data is then formatted and sent to MDPH's secure web server, giving state epidemiologists instant access to a complete report which includes demographics, test type, specimen source, exact results, and antibiotic susceptibilities.

By employing ELR, CHA is able to deliver lab results, drawn directly from its information system, to MDPH the same day they become available. ELR reduces the complexity of reporting for cases defined by laboratory results while also improving the efficiency, completeness, and timeliness of the reports.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health: www.mass.gov/dph

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physicians Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid plan.