Lab Matters Spring 2018 | Page 21

newborn screening

By Joshua Miller, MPH, research instructor, Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health; Willie Andrews, BSMT( ASCP), director of laboratory operations, Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, Virginia Public Health Laboratory; Melanie Kourbage, MA, J Michael Consulting; and Mary Kate Yost-Daljev, PhD, J Michael Consulting

Physicians and public health professionals agree that the turnaround time for newborn screening( NBS) is critical to positive outcomes. The Newborn Screening Technical assistance and Evaluation Program( NewSTEPs) recognizes that health information technology— specifically electronic test orders and results( ETOR)— can significantly improve turnaround times, increasing the opportunity for early diagnosis and treatment, and avoiding potential irreversible damage for infants at risk of a disorder on state NBS panels.

To assist the NBS community members in implementing an electronic data exchange, NewSTEPs worked with the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, J Michael Consulting, ten NBS programs and national stakeholders to develop a new publication, Building Blocks: Newborn Screening Health IT Implementation Guide and Toolkit. The guide is directed to laboratory professionals, project managers, hospital administrators, subject matter experts, nurse managers and other NBS project stakeholders.

Building Blocks focuses on HL7 messaging from the perspective of a NBS laboratory implementing ETOR with one or more hospitals. It offers guidance on all phases of implementation, including the technical aspects of data exchange set-up, defining a message profile, managing relationships with stakeholders and budgeting resources and time. Despite the emphasis on HL7 messaging, the recommendations can be applied to any data exchange implementation.

“ Building Blocks is valuable to a NBS program at any phase of the electronic data exchange implementation process,” explains Joshua Miller, MPH, epidemiology research instructor at the Colorado School of Public Health.“ In the past, programs worked separately to implement electronic data exchange and, as a result, they have reinvented the proverbial wheel. Building Blocks brings guidance, uniformity, clarity and a level of standardization to a complex process.”

Building Blocks includes project management templates, examples of partnership agreements and worksheets to help map, implement and validate an HL7 message. Terminologists and HL7 subject matter experts( SMEs) can use the workbooks to conduct a gap analysis comparing the laboratory’ s systems to the message format, map local to standard codes and validate test messages. To provide a real world perspective, the guide also includes case studies contributed by members of the NBS community.

Users are encouraged to approach the guide in an“ à la carte” fashion. The SME Matrix in the appendix allows users to find relevant content rapidly.

As laboratories begin to review and use the guide, they will likely identify topics that are not covered or that would benefit from more in-depth treatment. Accordingly, Building Blocks will be a living document that is expanded and updated in response to the needs of the NBS community. Currently the Building Blocks team is developing a web-based version of the guide. n

Building Blocks brings guidance, uniformity, clarity and a level of standardization to a complex process.”