Lab Matters Spring 2025 | Page 29

INFORMATICS

By Rachel Shepherd , senior specialist , Informatics

In August 2024 , APHL went into production with its electronic test order and results ( ETOR ) solution , Detor , with initial implementers Orlando Health and the Florida Department of Health . Detor is a solution hosted on the APHL Informatics Messaging System ( AIMS ) Platform that links a hospital ’ s electronic health records ( EHR ) system with a public health laboratory ’ s information management system . Florida was one of the early states to express interest in adopting Detor to connect with hospitals submitting newborn screening test orders . They were able to secure an ETOR partnership with their highest volume submitter , Orlando Health , encompassing four birthing hospitals .

Since going live , they have seen a nearly two-day improvement in newborn screening result availability . Additionally , it has eliminated the need for any sort of manual intervention or data entry , saving what amounts to hundreds of hours of time for hospital staff each month . The immediate sending of results directly into the hospital ’ s EHR also means that results are available directly in a patient ’ s chart ; this new digital format creates easy accessibility and transferability for providers who may need access over the course of a baby ’ s healthcare journey .

Detor is currently in the implementation phase with three other states slated to go into production in spring 2025 . Detor is also planning larger scale expansion to more laboratories , hospitals and tests beyond newborn screening in 2025 .

The Need for Detor

Healthcare depends on public health laboratories to conduct tests that help detect and prevent outbreaks and screen newborns for disorders that can be deadly or devastating without swift intervention . The ability for healthcare and public health to be able to communicate efficiently , quickly and accurately is critical .

Despite reliance on this network of laboratories to generate and communicate critical and actionable data , the laboratories themselves too often have roadblocks making this extremely difficult . Many of them rely largely on paper-based manual methods , which are time-consuming and error-prone , as the infrastructure required to make the upgrade to electronic exchange is expensive and requires long-term dedicated staff . Even when a public health laboratory and a healthcare organization can electronically exchange data , it is inherently a one-off solution — historically , each connection must be built and maintained for each and every partner , making widespread ETOR largely unachievable in public health .

Detor is a centralized , national solution that takes the onus off laboratories to develop their own disparate technical solutions , instead allowing each laboratory to plug in to existing infrastructure . This enables the leveraging and sharing of tools , resources and technical expertise to achieve ETOR nationwide . Detor substantially reduces the need for data exchange expertise at the laboratory and minimizes the burden for public health laboratories . And as the translation and mapping happens in AIMS , this solution allows providers and laboratories to submit and receive orders and results in each of their native and preferred formats . This model also comes with dedicated technical assistance from APHL to help facilitate the onboarding process .

An Award-winning Solution

Soon after its first rollout , APHL and Ruvos — a longtime informatics partner and a Diamond Level Sustaining Member of APHL — were awarded the 2024 Amazon Web Services ( AWS ) IMAGINE Grant : Children ’ s Health Innovation Award for the development of Detor . This award recognizes groundbreaking efforts to advance children ’ s health using cutting-edge cloud technology and provides a combination of funding and AWS cloud credits to winners . This support will accelerate the expansion of Detor , enabling it to scale beyond newborn screening to other high-volume , potentially life-saving tests , such as tuberculosis , HIV , hepatitis and influenza , ultimately transforming the landscape of public health data exchange .

To find out more about implementing Detor in your laboratory , visit : https :// www . aphl . org / programs / informatics / Pages / DETOR . aspx . g