2014.ISDS.Abstracts.Final.pdf


ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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ISDS 2014 Conference Abstracts

Leveraging the Master Patient Index in Public Health 
Surveillance through Collaboration between Illinois 
Department of Public Health and the Illinois Health 
Information Exchange

Stacey Hoferka*1, Ivan Handler2, Steven Linthicum2, Dejan Jovanov1, William Trick3 and 
Judy Kauerauf1

1Illinois Dept. of Public Health, Chicago, IL, USA; 2Illinois Office of Health Information Technology Authority, Chicago, IL, USA; 3Cook 
County Health & Hospital System, Chicago, IL, USA

Objective
This presentation will describe public health efforts to improve 

data collection by utilizing technology that supports record linkage 
through the implementation of the Master Patient Index (MPI). The 
initial use case will be applied to ambulatory syndromic surveillance 
at Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). It will include 
applications for incorporating the MPI into currently existing 
public health surveillance data and benefits to data integration and 
bidirectional information exchange.

Introduction
Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 public health reporting for 

Eligible Professionals (EPs) included a menu option for ambulatory 
syndromic surveillance. Review of currently existing models lead to 
a collaboration between the Illinois Health Information Exchange 
(ILHIE) and IDPH to build services that would support the use of 
the MPI, a database that can uniquely match records across systems. 
The MPI providers a mechanism for public health to manage multiple 
data streams, while maintaining confidentiality of health information 
and supporting the mission of public health to identify patterns of 
illness, apply effective interventions and conduct program evaluation. 
This initiative will allow IDPH to extend the use of the MPI to other 
surveillance domains, including hospital discharge, communicable 
disease, cancer and extensively drug resistance organism reporting.

Methods
To fully support the national goals of MU and providers’ needs 

in our community to achieve MU, IDPH declared it would accept 
ambulatory syndromic surveillance on October 1, 2013. The process 
for implementing the use of the MPI in the health department will be 
described within the context of specific domains and required services. 
The exchange of data between providers and the health department, 
accepted formats, certification message translation services, required 
data elements to support MPI and the state implementation guidance 
for syndromic surveillance will be demonstrated with the ambulatory 
use case. The extension of the MPI to applications within existing 
surveillance systems will be delineated along with relevant public 
health applications.

Results
The ILHIE services for providers to facilitate exchange of 

electronic health records across health systems have generated 7.9 
million unique MPI identifiers. The sources that will contribute data 
to the ambulatory surveillance system represent a diverse range 
of providers and patient populations from large health systems to 
federally qualified health centers, and is actively under expansion. 
For Meaningful Use, over 4,500 EPs registered their intent to submit 
data to IDPH for ambulatory syndromic surveillance as of September, 

2014. By the end of the year, data from at least 1400 providers will 
be on-boarded by IDPH and evaluated for completeness and quality 
of data elements.

Conclusions
There are many advantage to a standardized patient identifier 

incorporated into public health surveillance that will intergrate 
independent data collection systems and improve population health 
analysis. This is important for turning large data sets into actionable 
information. Utilizing the ILHIE’s MPI services allows IDPH to 
continue to expand its support for public health reporting through 
the ILHIE to Eligible Providers. This approach will position IDPH to 
better implement specialized registries and prepare for Stage 3 MU.

Keywords
Syndromic Surveillance; HIE; Meaningful Use; public health; MPI

*Stacey Hoferka

E-mail: stacey.hoferka@illinois.gov    

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * (1):e80, 201