Timeliness of Chlamydia Laboratory and Provider Reports: A Modern Perspective

Communicable disease reporting remains a challenging task for public health. To understand modern reporting behaviors and challenges, we investigated a sample of chlamydia laboratory and provider communicable disease documentation sent to a local health department. We measured the delay between a chlamydia positive test result and when reports were sent to public health in addition to comparing the results to state law. Laboratory reporting has improved given the adoption of electronic lab reporting. However, provider reports still lag and tend to be fax-based. Given the movement towards electronic health record (EHR) systems, health IT platforms may further improve the timeliness of public health reporting.