Objective: Capability to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual submission according to applicable law and practice.

Measure: Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to provide electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and follow-up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the public health agencies to which an EP submits information has the capacity to receive the information electronically).

Exclusion: An EP who does not collect any reportable syndromic information on their patients during the EHR reporting period, does not submit such information to any public health agency that has the capacity to receive the information electronically, or if it is prohibited.

This measure is not tracked within the SOAPware Meaningful Use dashboards. This Meaningful Use measure requires that the eligible professional must attest YES to having performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and follow up submission if the test was successful (unless none of the public health agencies to with the EP submits such information has the capacity to receive the information electronically).

*NOTE: Functionality to export surveillance data has been added to SOAPware 2011+; however much remains to be defined on this measure. There are not many public health agencies that seem to be in a position to support receiving systems very robustly at this time. Therefore, this measure also includes an exclusion explained in the CMS reference link above that states "Exclusion: An EP who does not collect any reportable syndromic information on their patients during the EHR reporting period or does not submit such information to any public health agency that has the capacity to receive the information electronically."

*IMPORTANT: Eligible professionals must choose at least one objective out of the two public health measures (Immunization Registries Data Submission & Syndromic Surveillance Data Submission).

*CMS States: "Should the Eligible Professional (EP) be able to meet the measure for one of these public health menu measures and can attest that an exclusion applies for the other, the EP is required to select and report on the public health menu measure they are able to meet. If the EP can attest to an exclusion from both public health menu measures, the EP must choose one of the two public health menu measures and attest to the exclusion.

For more detailed information on this measure, please click on the reference link below. This CMS documentation includes information on exclusions, attestation requirements, a definition of terms, and important additional information.

Reference CMS: Syndromic Surveillence Data Submission

Please contact our Training Department to obtain access to our Meaningful Use 2014 Resource Center that includes SOAPware's comprehensive step-by-step Meaningful Use 2014 Roadmaps and Clinical Quality Measures Roadmap, along with other helpful resources. To request access to our Meaningful Use 2014 Resource Center, please contact our Training Department by submitting at ticket: Training Ticket.