Table 1
Examples of PHIN Functional Requirements
| PHIN Functional Areas | Example Requirements |
| Early event detection | Secondary use of clinical care and other health-related data for early identification of public health events |
| Reportable disease case reporting from clinical care via the Web and 24/7 call reporting systems with triage of disease urgency | |
| Situational awareness of the size, location, and spread of a health event using secondary use data and case reporting | |
| Disease data exchange using HL7-specific implementation guides | |
| Detection algorithms to determine and visualize deviation from normal disease patterns | |
| Outbreak management | Case investigation and management |
| Exposure contact tracing | |
| Exposure source investigation and linking of cases and contacts to exposure sources | |
| Data collection, packaging, and shipment of clinical and environmental specimens | |
| Integration with early detection and countermeasure administration capabilities | |
| Linking laboratory test results with clinical case data | |
| Flexibility to support agent-specific and emerging requirements while adhering to standard terminology and data relationships | |
| Connecting laboratory systems | Standard HL7 message formats and terminology standards for specimen receipt and laboratory result reporting |
| Receipt and management of specimen and sample data | |
| Monitoring of testing activity to project load distribution during a large-scale event | |
| Countermeasure and response administration | Support and track administration of vaccinations and prophylaxes |
| Support apportionment and allocation for limited supplies | |
| Traceability to drug lot, vaccinator, or clinic | |
| Adverse events monitoring | |
| Follow-up of patients (e.g., vaccine “take” response evaluation) | |
| Isolation and quarantine monitoring and tracking | |
| Links to distribution vehicles (such as commercial distribution channels and the Strategic National Stockpile2) to provide traceability between distributed and administered products | |
| Integration with immunization and disease registries | |
| Partner communications and alerting | Rapid distribution of health alerts and communications to public health workers, primary care physicians, public health laboratory workers, the public, etc. |
| Multiple channels of distribution: e-mail, pagers, voicemail, and/or automated faxing | |
| Selective distribution based on the urgency and sensitivity of the message | |
| Collaborative communications (Web boards, threaded discussions, and Web conferencing) among a defined set of involved public health professionals | |
| Cross-functional components | Secure message transport: ensuring messages are received and read only by intended audiences |
| Public health directory for consistent, uniform management of people, roles, organizations, organization types, and jurisdictions when exchanging information | |
| Recipient addressing: identifying appropriate recipient lists for information exchange | |
| Terminology standards: adhering to standard vocabulary lists and structures | |
| System security and availability: protecting systems from sabotage or failure, and protecting data from corruption or unauthorized access | |
| Privacy: protecting patients and organizations from fraudulent or unauthorized use of their information |
