Electronic Case Reporting

Electronic case reporting (eCR) is the automated, real-time exchange of case report information between electronic health records (EHRs) and public health agencies.

Traditionally, health care providers need to know the rules for reporting and must manually report cases of public health concern to their public health agencies via fax, phone call, or email. eCR automates public health case reporting by automatically generating and transmitting case reports from EHRs to public health agencies for further investigation, rather than manually reporting. 

Benefits of eCR:

• Decreases the burden on providers to report
• Eliminates the need for manual data entry
• Delivers more timely, complete, and accurate communicable disease surveillance data.

North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) can only receive eCR messages related to conditions that are Mandatory Reportable in North Dakota. Mandatory reportable conditions can be found on our website. You may qualify for an exemption from Promoting Interoperability Program or MIPS requirements if your facility does not treat or diagnose any reportable diseases within ND.

NDHHS is ready to onboard and receive eCR messages from providers if your EHR/health IT product is approved for general onboarding according to the CDC. However, NDHHS is currently working on implementing eCR into the production environment of our North Dakota Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NDEDSS). Manual reporting methods for all reportable conditions must continue at this time.

Coordinate with your EHR vendor, the CDC eCR Onboarding Team, and APHL to implement eCR within your EHR system and connect with APHL AIMS.

1. Register your intent for eCR implementation with NDHHS. Please complete the Promoting Interoperability Program registration form.
2. Review the checklist on the APHL AIMS website.
3. Confirm that your EHR supports Health Level 7 (HL7) electronic initial case report (eICR) and Reportability Response (RR) standards.
4. Conduct full triggering of eICRs (triggering for all conditions) by implementing Electronic Reporting and Surveillance Distribution (eRSD) version 3 or higher.

To learn more about eCR reporting and how to implement eCR, please visit these resources:

• CDC eCR information
• APHL eCR information
• HL7 CDA R2 Implementation Guides: Electronic Initial Case Report (eICR) and Reportability Response (RR)
• HL7 FHIR Implementation Guide: Electronic Case Report (eCR)

If you have questions, please contact us at disease@nd.gov with "Electronic Case Reporting" in the subject line, or call 701-328-3278, 711 (TTY).