Direct message: CDC moving to high tech infection reporting

January 12th, 2015

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national surveillance system for health care associated infections (HAIs) is moving to a new electronic reporting method that should be considerably less labor intensive for infection preventionists.

The CDC plans to use the Direct clinical messaging protocol to enable health care facilities to send HAI reports automatically to its National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), a business tech website reports.

The CDC previously issued a request for proposals--which were due Sept. 12--for a health information service provider that can route Direct messages from healthcare providers to NHSN, according to InformationWeek

The adoption of the new protocol should eventually eliminate the need for hospitals to report through the current methods, which include using a Web-based interface or by manual upload from the facility’s electronic medical records. The use of Direct messaging should simplify the data submission by allowing medical staff to send reports automatically, the business tech site reported. It also will allow the NHSN to shift to a single standardized way to receive HAI data.