Hospital recruitment for electronic laboratory reporting in HIV surveillance: A web-based survey

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aims to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (HIT). In 2011, the HDHHS HIV Surveillance Program received supplemental funding from CDC to conduct a laboratory survey, and to support an initiative to actively recruit local hospital laboratories for electronic laboratory reporting (ELR).

During the ELR project period, we conducted a web-based survey and collected information from 41 facilities that performed HIV tests in Houston, TX. We identified barriers of laboratory reporting for HIV surveillance in Houston. These barriers include: laboratory unfamiliar with the reporting requirements (26%), lower priority compared to other tasks (19%), under-staffed (14%), unsure who to report to (9%). In addition, we identified 25 laboratories that performed HIV tests and are interested in ELR. We successfully recruited 9 laboratories during the project period, and developed tools and hosted weekly conference calls to monitor project progress. The useful strategies to recruit and retain facilities for electronic laboratory reporting are (1) establish a Participation Agreement with hospitals to specify the terms related to ELR, (2) develop a project management plan which outlines steps and timeframe to establish IT connectivity, perform unit testing and/or integrated testing. (3) maintain open communication and schedule weekly conference calls as well as regular site visits.

Electronic laboratory reporting can increase the accuracy and completeness of the HIV surveillance data, which is critical for HIV prevention program planning and evaluation. This ELR project identified the barriers related to laboratory reporting in Houston, piloted the best practices and demonstrated the steps for successful hospital recruitment and ELR implementation