Description of the MHS Health Level 7 Anatomic Pathology for Public Health Surveillance

摘要

The EpiData Center Department (EDC) at the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (NMCPHC) evaluated the Health Level 7 (HL7) data source for its usefulness in health surveillance activities. This technical document provides a history of the HL7 anatomic pathology database and its contents, explains the creation of pathology records, describes the pathway of data from healthcare provider to the EDC, provides a detailed descriptions of all variables within the database, and assesses the database's strengths and limitations. Given an understanding of the strengths and limitations of the data, HL7 pathology data have proven to be a valuable source of health information for surveillance purposes. The data allow the creation of a timeline of events corresponding to a specific disease occurrence. Furthermore, data are received in a timely fashion, allowing for near-real-time surveillance of diseases.