OREGON'S ELR STATE-COUNTY FAX PILOT

NOTE: Each of Oregon's 36 counties is now actively participating in the State-County Fax Pilot program.

The ELR State-County Fax Pilot involves an interim method of routing lab data to the appropriate county health department by use of a secure, automated fax. The goal of this pilot is to provide a temporary method of rapidly routing ELR data to county health departments. Eventually, this fax pilot will be replaced by county web access to state data (see NEDSS).

PROS: Benefits of the State-County Fax Pilot

• Fast - Counties receive the lab reports within minutes of their arrival at the state.
• Fully automated. Once the translation process for a county is completed, the faxes are sent directly by the system with no human interaction. The system:
  • Automatically extracts data based on developed geocoding hierarchy
  • Automatically generates a data file of those records
  • Automatically faxes the generated file to appropriate Local Health Department
• Notification - The system sends an automated email notification daily (indicating "fax sent" or "no fax sent" notification, depending upon action taken)
• Customizable - The fax report format was developed with county input and can be customized for each county. Currently, we offer a choice of "Long Form" or "Short Form" as a starting format.

• Format - Since the system is faxing an electronic file directly, the format of the report is not equal to that of a word-processed document. When a paper copy is manually faxed to another machine, it will appear identical in format. However, all fax machines impose some formatting differences on an electronic file. For example, faxing the same electronic file to 3 different fax machines will result in 3 slightly different formats. However, with county feedback it is possible to adjust the spacing/alignment of the report for each fax machine.
• Patient Address - Patient address information may be missing from some lab reports, particularly those submitted by large reference labs. When patient address information is missing, our system will assign a default county code based on the ordering provider address. Thus some large metropolitan counties, with large numbers of doctor's offices, may receive reports on patients not actually residing in their county and will need to route these to the appropriate county. This is an area of concern nationally, and Oregon is working closely with national labs to improve the reporting of patient address information.

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