ISDS Meaningful Use Guidelines Update

On March 6, 2012, ISDS released the Draft Guidelines for Syndromic Surveillance Using Inpatient and Ambulatory Clinical Care EHR Data (Draft Guidelines) for a public comment period that ended on April 2nd. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the Draft Guidelines. During the comment period, stakeholders provided a wealth of thoughtful and insightful comments. This commentary is a source of valuable insight that is helping the ISDS Meaningful Use Workgroup recommend guidelines that best reflect the needs of the surveillance community. ISDS greatly appreciates the time and effort of the stakeholder respondents for providing their comments.

Figure 1

ISDS heard from 73 stakeholders in the form of survey responses, email communication, and phone interviews. Out of the 73 respondents, 78% (57) provided comments using the Draft Guidelines Stakeholder Comment Form via SurveyMonkey. The next popular method of feedback was comments provided through e-mail communication by 19% (14) of respondents. Finally, 3% (2) provided feedback during a phone interview. (See figure 1.)

Figure 2

The survey responses included information about the professional background of the respondents which help inform the commentary's perspective. The majority of comments were provided by public health stakeholders (42) followed by researchers (8). ISDS also received feedback from EHR/HIE technology vendors and one eligible healthcare professional or hospital. (See figure 2.)

Over the course of the next month, ISDS staff and the Meaningful Use Workgroup will continue to analyze the comments received and work to incorporate the responses and develop the Provisional Guidelines. The Provisional Guidelines will be released in June for a second round of public comment which will inform the release of the Final Guidelines due in September.

Until then, you can learn more information about the development of these guidelines by visiting the Meaningful Use webpage on the ISDS website. 


If you have any questions, you may contact Charlie Ishikawa, ISDS Associate Director of Public Health Programs, at meaningfuluse@syndromic.org or (617) 779-0886.