Coalition Formed to Fight the Spread of Influenza

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS; Washington, DC, USA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC;Atlanta, GA, USA), and Cerner (Kansas City, MO, USA) are collaborating to create the Flu Pandemic Initiative, a secure, rapid detection network for the influenza virus, including H1N1.

The new initiative will supply each state's public health department, Cerner clients, and the CDC with near-real-time situational awareness information to help communities triage resources. The initiative will not replace existing public health reporting requirements, but it will help all participants and other public health organizations make decisions based on summarized information from an integrated, national, Cerner-based network of clinical systems, monitoring health trends so as to more rapidly deploy resources to contain the influenza virus. Cerner's clients, who combined represent one-third of the U.S. healthcare system, have agreed to feed summarized, non-patient-specific, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant data into specially designed software that will aggregate and organize it for use nationally, as well as locally and regionally. Currently more than 700 facilities in 46 U.S. states have agreed to participate, and more than 200 are already contributing data.

"The CDC told us that before now, this data would have taken days to compile and would have already been out of date as soon as it was released,” said Neal Patterson, chairman and CEO of Cerner. "There is a better way. We connect more than 30% of healthcare to track the spread of influenza and to provide analytical data to enable a more rapid response.”

"Being a part of a nationwide network that can allow us to see where flu hot spots are in near real time will be very valuable in helping us anticipate healthcare needs in the communities we serve,” said Terrence O'Rourke, chief clinical officer and executive vice president of Trinity Health (Novi, MI, USA), one of the largest health systems in the United States, with 45 hospitals in eight states. "This integrated network will help healthcare providers across the United States understand when demand for services will likely spike, be ready to meet that increased demand and provide quality care to their patients."

Related Links:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control
Cerner
Trinity Health