After you complete the ​electronic case reporting (eCR) onboarding steps with the CDC and APHL AIMS eCR teams, you will begin sending your Production eCRs to the Maryland Department of Health's Test infectious disease surveillance system (NBS NEDSS Test). The MDH eCR Team will review your eCRs in the MDH Test system and provide you feedback. 

MDH does not have any Maryland-specific data elements that must be sent in your electronic case reports. However, it is essential that you send complete and accurate data for the following items. Please use the appropriate null flavor values where relevant​.

1. Complete patient name (minimum of first name and last name).
   
2. Complete patient date of birth (MM/DD/YYYY).
   
3. Patient sex (at birth), race, ethnicity, pregnancy indicator, hospitalized indicator (with admission and discharge dates, if yes), and deceased indicator (with deceased date, if yes).
   
4. C​omplete patient residential address, including full street address, city, state, zip, as well as the patient's county of residence.

​Additional requirements:

1. ​​​The Encounter Type must not be missing. Please use one of the six (6) HL7 Encounter Class coded values and display its text value in the eCR:
• AMB - Ambulatory
  
• EMER - Emergency
• HH - Home health
• IMP - Inpatient encounter
• OBSENC - Observation encounter​
  
• VR - Virtual
2. ​​Include reportable condition(s) for active ​problems only. Exclude any inactive or resolved conditions from the eCR. Please remind your healthcare providers to inactivate any ​conditions, problems, medications, lab results, and other data that are not current for the patient. 
   
3. All d​iagnoses, active problems, and concerns must contain the standard SNOMED or ICD-10 code (or both).
   
4. All ​​ordered and resulted laboratory tests must contain the LOINC and name of the test. Laboratory tests with qualifier results must contain the SNOMED result code and the SNOMED result description, such as ​260373001 Detected (qualifier value) and ​260385009 Negative (qualifier value)​.
   
5. Include complete​​ custodian information to uniquely identify your healthcare organization's sending facilities, reporting facilities, and healthcare providers.
   
6. If you have multiple locations, prefix the facility name with a consistent short name or abbreviation.
   ​For example, if the facilities of ACME Healthcare include:​
   
• Pediatric Clinic Downtown
  
• Springfield Outpatient​ Center
  
• St. Joseph Hospital
  
Please list the facilities as:

• ​ACME Pediatric Clinic Downtown​
  
• ACME Springfield Outpatient Center
  
• ACME St. Joseph Hospital​​
  
7. ​​Ensure that your organization's ​electronic health records (EHR) system is triggering eCRs from the most recent version of the electronic Reporting and Surveillance Distribution (eRSD). If your organization's eRSD is not on the most recent version, please install the latest eRSD release. You must have the current eRSD installed no later than the Effective Start Date of the release; see the release documentation for that date.
8. Check your Reportability Responses (RRs) regularly for messages from the AIMS platform that indicate that your eRSD is out-of-date or malformed, and take the appropriate action to correct it. This will ensure that your organization is triggering on the latest version of the code sets for reportable conditions.
   
9. ​Ensure that the version of your organization's eCR module is up-to-date (vendor-developed or the ​eCR Now FHIR ​App). If your organization uses the eCR Now FHIR App and is unable to update it, please open a support ticket with your EHR vendor and request that the vendor promptly update the app.
   
10. Pay prompt attention to email messages that you may receive from the CDC, AIMS, or MDH eCR onboarding ​​​teams. The MDH eCR team will review the frequency and volume of the eCRs received from your healthcare organization to ensure a steady flow of data.

​Return to the main MDH eCR page​ ​​​​

Last updated December 3​​, 2024