Welcome to our computer based education in-service on communicable disease reporting (CDR). Known as the cornerstone of public health surveillance and disease control, CDR allows our local health agency the opportunity to stop disease transmission, find and treat exposed individuals, control outbreaks, make sure that treatment has been effective and follow-up is complete as well as alerting the healthcare community (Arizona Department of Health Services, Epidemiology & Disease Control ).

As a healthcare facility in the state of Arizona we fall under Arizona Administrative Code (AAC) R9-6-202, 203, 204, and 205 which requires us to submit a report on communicable disease to the local health agencies failing to do so puts our accreditation at risk (Arizona Department of Health Services, Report Communicable Diseases).

Procedure 04.01.05 was written to comply with CDR requirements of the Pima County and Arizona State Health Department. Diseases listed by County and State Health Departments must be reported to Infection Control when a patient is admitted or diagnosed (Tucson Medical Center, 2016).

Please call the Infection Control Department at 4-5529 with the following information.
• Patient’s name
• Patient’s medical record number
• Patient’s room number
• Patient’s date of admission
• Infectious disease and/or any rule out diseases
• Attending physician. (Tucson Medical Center, 2016)

A list of reportable disease can be found here:
http://www.azdhs.gov/documents/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/co...
If you have a question if disease should be reported or not, please call Infection Control at 4-5529.

After receiving this information from the floor nurse, Infection control will then complete all necessary forms.

Patients identified through Lab provided reports and Emergency Department admission for CDR’s will be reviewed and forms completed by Infection Control as well and then sent on to the Pima County Health Department (Tucson Medical Center, 2016).

Electronic reporting to our public health agencies has decreased the report processing time necessary. Reports are now being acted upon closer to the actual report date, allowing for a more rapid response to communicable diseases in our patient population (Samoff, Fangman, Fleischauer, Waller, & Macdonald, 2013).

Information gathered through CDR is used to observe for disease trends, identify high risk groups, allocate for resources, create policies and design prevention programs (Arizona Department of Health Services, Epidemiology & Disease Control).

Our participation in CDR allows for improved integration of clinical services and public health programs. Public health and clinical facilities and healthcare members are able to work more closely together. This collaboration has led to automated public health decision support tools and find ways for meaning use of collected data (Birkhead, Klompas, & Shah, (2015).