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Electronic Case Reporting: MDH validation

After you complete the ​electronic case reporting (eCR) onboarding steps with your electronic health record (EHR) system vendor, and 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 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. 
  5. ​For Patient County, please use this list of 5-digit ​C​​ounty-level FIPS code​s​. Note: Maryland counties begin with the prefix 24​. For example: 24001 is the code for Allegany County, Maryland.​

​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​​​​ 

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

Last updated February 26, 2026