Monitoring tuberculosis programs - National Tuberculosis Indicator Project, United States, 2002-2008.

The National Tuberculosis Indicators Project (NTIP) is a secure, web-based monitoring system that uses routinely collected surveillance data on individual tuberculosis (TB) cases to measure the performance of state and local TB control programs, help programs to prioritize improvement efforts and focus on key TB control activities, and track progress toward national program objectives. Data are reported on a yearly basis and with frequent updates. This report summarizes NTIP results from the most recent 5 years for which data are available. Program performance was mixed, with general improvement for indicators related to TB case management (e.g., recommended initial therapy, genotyping data reported, human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] status reported, sputum culture reporting, and culture conversion documentation), but lower performance for indicators related to contact investigations of patients with infectious TB (e.g., contact elicitation, medical evaluation of contacts to infectious TB patients, and treatment initiation rate for persons diagnosed with latent TB infection [LTBI]). All performance indicators remained below the national performance targets for 2015. Starting in 2010, programs receiving CDC cooperative agreement funds for TB prevention and control will be required to use NTIP indicator data to describe their performance and formulate plans for improvement.