A unique characteristic of Digital Bridge is its commitment to promoting bidirectional information exchange between healthcare and public health, ensuring that the needs of each stakeholder group are met and fostering a better connection between the two, a relationship that is integral to efficient public health surveillance.

As its first project, Digital Bridge partners designed a nationally scalable, multi-jurisdictional approach to electronic case reporting (eCR). The foundation for the eCR architecture was prior investments by CDC in Council of State and Teritorial Epidemiologist (CSTE) Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) AIMS platform. eCR is the automated generation and transmission of case reports from electronic health record (EHR) systems used in healthcare to public health agencies for review and action. In 2019, after the success in the pilot sites, eCR was turned over to APHL, CSTE, and CDC to go into full production. These organizations continue to operate the cloud-based decision support intermediary and facilitate eCR between healthcare and public health agencies. For current information about eCR, visit CDC’s eCR website or contact the eCR team at ecr@cdc.gov.

Following the successful transition, Digital Bridge set off to identify new use cases to improve data exchange between healthcare and public health. Digital Bridge worked to develop concept papers on public health APIs and expanding eCR’s capacity and capability. Digital Bridge also developed workgroups focused on cancer registries, healthcare acquired infections reporting by skilled nursing homes, and immunization registries. 

After careful consideration and Collaborative Body vote, a decision was reached to cease Digital Bridge operations and archive assets. Assets of Digital Bridge transitioned to this site to be archived and available for public view.