Registration and Onboarding Process

Hospitals may register their intent to submit syndromic surveillance data from their emergency department to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LAC DPH) by email to lacphsynd@ph.lacounty.gov.  The email must include a hospital representative’s contact information including name, telephone number, and email address.  A registration may be completed for individual hospitals, or for several hospitals together in a corporate group if their data will be submitted in a single data feed.  When a hospital formally submits a registration, an email reply will be sent to the hospital representative, confirming receipt of the hospital’s registration, and the hospital may attest “Yes” to the Promoting Interoperability (formerly known as Meaningful Use) syndromic surveillance reporting measure.  The hospital’s active engagement status will be recorded as “Completed Registration to Submit Data”, and LAC DPH will place the hospital in a holding queue. The position in the queue will be based on several factors including (but not limited to) staff/resource availability, date of registration, and volume of data expected.

When LAC DPH is ready to work with the hospital, an email invitation will be sent to the hospital representative.  At this time, the hospital’s active engagement status will change to “Invited to Test”.  LAC DPH requires that the hospital respond to the invitation within 30 days.  If a timely response is not received from the hospital, LAC DPH may place it back in the holding queue.

Once the invitation to test has been accepted by the hospital, LAC DPH will work closely with the hospital representative and IT staff and associated data vendors to initiate the exchange and testing of data.  At this time, the hospital’s active engagement status will change to “Testing and Validation”.  The hospital will review the list of requested data elements (as specified in the LA County Messaging guide) and transmit sample messages to determine what data elements are available for transmission to the Syndromic Surveillance Project (SSP).

LA County Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance

LAC DPH will verify submitted test data for valid structure, content, and completeness.  During this process, frequent communication between the hospital and LAC DPH will be necessary, and LAC DPH requires that the hospital respond to any requests within 30 days.  Failure to do so may result in the hospital being placed back in the holding queue.

Once testing is complete, the hospital will be asked to turn the live feed on. Submission of production data is achieved when the hospital completes testing and validation and LAC DPH determines that the hospital’s live data is correct in structure and content. At this time, the hospital's active engagement status is changed to "Production", and LAC DPH will send the hospital a Letter of Acknowledgement of Production, which should be saved by the hospital for Promoting Interoperability audit purposes.

No, we do not currently have plans to accept private provider data. An exclusion letter for private providers may be found here.

No, hospitals wishing to meet MU2 or MU3 requirements must transmit ADT HL7 2.5.1 messages.

The SSP will review the hospital's data feed to determine that it is meeting current standards, as outlined in the most recent issue of the implementation guide.

Only emergency department and inpatient ADT messages are required for submission to LAC DPH. Urgent care and outpatient ADT messages are not currently accepted by the SSP.

The SSP will provide your project manager or MU coordinator with a letter of attestation of production upon request, which will state the presence and type of HL7 feed as well as the data elements contained.

Please email lacphsynd@ph.lacounty.gov for new connections, or to state that the hospital would like to have its existing feed reviewed for a potential upgrade towards meeting MU Stage 2 or Stage 3 objectives.