3 Ways AIMS Helps Patients Like You

Timely laboratory test results can mean the difference between life and death. That’s why the APHL Informatics Messaging Services (AIMS) Platform is a critical piece of the nation’s public health system. It serves as a hub to securely and quickly share vital public health data.

Lots of data.

Think of AIMS as a high-speed interstate transporting critical information—in the form of healthcare records, birth and death vital statistics, laboratory test orders and results and other health data—from one point to another. AIMS safely processes more than 40 million of these messages per month, facilitating data exchange across public health laboratories, federal partners, hospitals, private sector laboratories and other public health allies.

How does this infrastructure affect you?

Today, the essential health data that could save the life of a newborn in the NICU, detect a tumor in a loved one at an early stage or protect the US population from an emerging threat can be shared in near real time. And by investing in the latest technologies and centralizing these intermediary services into a single platform instead of replicating efforts across every public health agency, AIMS saves money, time and lives.

Effective patient treatment and disease surveillance require actionable data. That means the right data needs to be in the right place at the right time. For example, a healthcare provider needs test results STAT to evaluate a patient’s status before they can start the appropriate treatment, and a health official needs all available case investigation data to assess the risks posed by an emergent public health threat. This information helps drive decisions that can save a patient’s life or safeguard the public against a dangerous outbreak.

Here are some of the ways AIMS is revolutionizing how data is shared and how that revolution affects you.

1. Faster newborn screening results

Within hours of their birth, nearly every baby in the United States undergoes newborn screening to identify serious but treatable genetic conditions. Doctors must receive the results of this laboratory testing as soon as possible so they can start lifesaving treatment. AIMS Detor connects the public health laboratory with the birth hospital for seamless data transfer, sometimes even before the baby has a name. AIMS can also play a role in reporting the birth, through an application called STEVE, to the state’s vital records registry, which paves the way for things like medical insurance enrollment and a Social Security number.

2. National foodborne disease outbreak tracking

How does public health know when to issue a food recall? Local and state public health agencies investigate cases of foodborne disease and report their findings to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via AIMS through the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS). CDC uses these reports, along with other sources of information, to track outbreaks across regions, identify the source of the illness and inform actions that quickly contain the threat.

3. Effective medications

Think a fungal infection sounds bad? Try a fungal infection that doesn’t respond to antibiotics. Bacteria are continually evolving and can become resistant to commonly used antibiotics. AIMS enables the Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory Network to share data with each other and with CDC to track this resistance and ensure that when your provider prescribes you a drug, it works.

It’s about the data

Importantly, AIMS serves as a hub, transforming and translating data into the appropriate formats for every partner. Your doctor needs your laboratory results in a format that they can read and use. A JPEG attached to an email will not work for them, but the message delivered directly to your health record will. The goal of AIMS is to ensure that every system can talk with each other so that patients, providers, epidemiologists and the public have the full picture of a situation. They can then use that information to make decisions about patient care and population health.

Whether it’s newborn screening results for an infant in Alaska, a report on a Salmonella outbreak in Texas or an in-depth analysis of a rare cancer cluster in New York City, AIMS provides the technology and the critical infrastructure to securely and quickly get that data where it needs to go so people are treated and lives are saved.