FROM THE FOUNDATION

The Social Life of Health Information

A new Pew Internet/CHCF national survey finds the Internet has joined doctors and family members as one of the top three ways people search for answer to their health care questions.

Evaluating One-e-App

CHCF and The California Endowment funded the development of One-e-App, a Web-based program that enables users to apply for multiple public insurance programs at once. Read a business case assessment by The Lewin Group.

Privacy, Security, and the Stimulus Bill

The recently enacted economic stimulus legislation includes a number of improvements to federal health privacy law. This brief looks at issues of privacy and security in the wake of ARRA.

Privacy and Security

Thursday, March 06, 2008

CDC, Military Health System Partner To Track Disease Outbreaks

The Military Health System and CDC are partnering on a project in which CDC will use military sick call data to track outbreaks of infectious diseases, Government Health IT reports.

CDC receives records on individual clinic visits every four hours via File Transfer Protocol. The data allow the agency to track seasonal influenza and other disease, according to CDC Director Julie Gerberding.

MHS medical treatment facilities send Standard Ambulatory Data Records to its data repository, where records are processed to eliminate any individual's identifiable information. CDC then uses embedded software to transform the data into a form that is acceptable for delivery.

MHS' data repository is protected with access controls, Government Health IT reports.

"By aggregating the [Department of Defense] records into population-level data, we are able to develop situational awareness of infectious disease outbreaks," Gerberding said (Buxbaum, Government Health IT, 3/6).



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