SUMMARY

Health care reform efforts recognize the importance of population health in ensuring the overall health care of the country. This is evident in many of the initiatives that authorize spending and in the inclusion of health information interoperability with public health organizations.

The integration of provider EHRs with laboratory and population health information systems will facilitate real-time reporting, giving investigators of disease outbreaks the necessary lead time to roll out disease control efforts and education campaigns.

Health care organizations will need to implement EHR functionality that supports population health interests and to evaluate the beneficial impact of bidirectional data exchange.