Promoting Increased Use of Morbidity Reports to Improve Chlamydia Monitoring

Summary

Impact Statement: 
Harford County Health Department (HCHD) in Maryland increased the percentage of morbidity reports for chlamydia submitted by county health care providers, thus facilitating improved trend monitoring, ensuring proper treatment, and ultimately helping to reduce the spread of disease.
Summary: 

The HCHD Communicable Disease (CD) Program intends to improve its approach for obtaining morbidity reports from Harford County health care providers for documented cases of chlamydia trachomatis. Maryland law states that laboratories and health care providers report chlamydia cases to the local health department, which enables the health department to better monitor disease trends, ensure proper treatment, and decrease the spread of chlamydia. Unfortunately, CD Program staff found that several Harford County health care providers do not complete and submit morbidity reports for clients with positive chlamydia laboratory tests.

Through a continuous quality improvement process, the CD Program developed information to be faxed to health care providers to encourage submission of morbidity reports for chlamydia. During the 3 months after this intervention, providers reported 84% of the chlamydia cases to HCHD, a significant increase suggesting that the intervention was a success. Ultimately, it is hoped that, through better monitoring of trends and ensuring proper treatment, this process will help improve HCHD’s ability to decrease the spread of chlamydia and other diseases and to protect the health of Harford County residents.

Organization that conducted the QI initiative: 
HCHD
Citation: 

Callahan, M. Public Health Quality Improvement Exchange. Promoting Increased Use of Morbidity Reports to Improve Chlamydia Monitoring. Mon, 06/13/2016 - 13:34. Available at http://www.phqix.org/content/promoting-increased-use-morbidity-reports-improve-chlamydia-monitoring. Accessed March 29, 2024.

Submission Status: 
Completed
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