Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System
The Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System (ECLRS) provides laboratories that serve New York State with a single electronic system for secure and rapid transmission of reportable disease information to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), county health departments and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH).
ECLRS enhances public health surveillance by: providing timely reporting; improving completeness and accuracy of reports; and generally facilitating the identification of emergent public health problems by monitoring communicable diseases, lead poisoning, HIV/AIDS, and cancer.
Reporting Mandate
New York Public Health Law and Codes, Rules and Regulations require physicians, health care facilities, and licensed clinical laboratories to report all pertinent facts to public health authorities whenever an examination on a New York resident is performed to determine blood lead level or reveals evidence of a reportable communicable disease, HIV/AIDS, or cancer.
How Does It Work?
A laboratory accesses ECLRS through the New York State Health Provider Network (HPN), a password protected Web site, and either manually enters test results or uploads a special data file. The HPN is a secure network that meets Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and New York State health data security policy requirements. Once the data arrive in the database, communicable disease and blood lead test results are immediately made available to the appropriate local health departments across the state and each program area respectively. HIV/AIDS and cancer results in the database are made available to the HIV/AIDS and cancer programs in the NYSDOH. Communicable disease results for New York City residents are available to NYCDOHMH upon arrival into the system.
