Public Health Information Network--improving early detection by using a standards-based approach to connecting public health and clinical medicine.

Public health departments and their clinical partners are moving ahead rapidly to implement systems for early detection of disease outbreaks. In the urgency to develop useful early detection systems, information systems must adhere to certain standards to facilitate sustainable, real-time delivery of important data and to make data available to the public health partners who verify, investigate, and respond to outbreaks. To ensure this crucial interoperability, all information systems supported by federal funding for state and local preparedness capacity are required to adhere to the Public Health Information Network standards.