Public Health Data Standards at CDC: Why They Matter and Who Makes Them

Public health depends on exchanging data — between programs, labs, clinicians and agencies. Interoperable data standards make that possible, and with them the meaningful use of health information technology to improve the nation's health. At CDC, this is the job of the Standards and Interoperability Enterprise Services in the Division of Health Informatics and Surveillance (DHIS), which assesses existing standards and shares what it knows with partners inside and outside CDC.

What counts as a "standard"

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in Circular A-119 (1998), defines a standard broadly, to include:

1. common, repeated rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products, processes, production methods and related management practices;
2. definitions of terms, classifications of components, procedures, specifications of dimensions, materials, performance, designs or operations, measures of quality and quantity, test methods and sampling, and descriptions of fit, size or strength.

The federal rules behind it

CDC's standards work is reported each year in the NTTAA agency reports published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Tools for public health

• Data Interchange Standards — the standards adopted by the Public Health Information Network (PHIN) for areas such as surveillance (public health reporting, immunization, healthcare-associated infections), vital records and PHIN Communication and Alerting, plus the relevant laws, policies and privacy and security regulations.
• PHIN VADS (Vocabulary and Access Distribution System) — collects and distributes the value sets used in public health and clinical care.
• Conformity assessment — how CDC checks that systems meet the standards.

Who writes the standards

CDC helps develop standards for electronic data exchange with national and international organizations including:

• Health Level Seven International (HL7);
• the International Organization for Standardization (ISO);
• Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE);
• the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO);
• the Regenstrief Institute;
• The Society for Standards Professionals (SES);
• the World Health Organization (WHO).

Questions about CDC's standards work: phintech@cdc.gov.

Sources

Based on "Standards and Interoperability Enterprise Services," Public Health Information Network, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.