CDC selects GE Healthcare to track H1N1 flu activity

BARRINGTON, Ill. One of the leading providers of healthcare information technology has been selected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide extensive surveillance data for H1N1 and seasonal influenza activity throughout the United States.

Every 24 hours, GE Healthcare will report information gathered from its nationwide electronic database of nearly 14 million patient records to help the CDC monitor the spread of the H1N1 virus in near real-time.

GE Healthcare will have the daily reports upload from its medical quality improvement consortium, a repository designed with HIPAA-compliance parameters, of anonymous clinical data and best practices. Participating physicians automatically contribute de-identified data to MQIC each day through normal use of GE’s Centricity EMR when they document information collected during patient visits to physician offices and clinics. Operated by GE Clinical Data Services, which also provides research and analytical services, the MQIC database is growing at a rate of nearly 30% each year.

MQIC collates clinical data documented by primary-care physicians using GE’s centricity electronic medical record, giving the CDC tools to help track such clinical symptoms as fever, nausea and chills, prescriptions written, and vaccination rates, as well as variables such as procedures performed, pregnancy and patient age, within 24 hours of being documented in thousands of participating doctors’ offices across the country.

“We are pleased to help the CDC monitor this important public health issue,” said GE Healthcare IT VP and general manager Jim Corrigan. “This is a strong example of the power of digitizing the nation’s medical records. With EMR data, not only are we able to accelerate the reporting of any aggregate changes to the health of the U.S. population, we’re able to provide valuable and timely clinical data to health professionals.”