Alabama and Reporting Communicable Diseases

Guidelines for Reporting Communicable Diseases

Guidelines for reporting communicable diseases are crucial because they provide community health protection. These regulations are issued by the Alabama Department of Health in Birmingham, Alabama, which mandates that medical professionals, hospital and nursing home executives, school principals, and daycare and laboratory directors notify the organization of any infectious diseases they discover. This essay will outline the procedures that must be followed as well as the reporting obligations after a diagnosis.

Reporting Obligations

The Alabama Department of Public Health (2017) states that all reporting entities must inform the organization right away upon a preliminary diagnosis. To this end, the department indicates that extreme urgent diseases should be reported within 4 hours by telephone, while urgent diseases should be reported within 24 hours via telephone or electronically. Further, standard notifiable diseases should not surpass 5 days and should be forwarded electronically or in writing (Alabama Department of Public Health, 2017). Extreme urgent, urgent, and standard diseases or conditions are defined as per the categorised list the department has provided.

Required Information in Reports

It is a requirement that every report should contain the disease name or condition detected, patient’s name, date of birth, address, phone number, and payor source. Further, demographic details of gender, race, and ethnicity of the patient together with details of disease onset date, laboratory results date, diagnosis date should be included in the report together with the name, phone, and institution facility that is making the report. The department also indicates that the state health officer may require supplementary information or investigations that the reporter should supply when needed (Alabama Department of Public Health, 2017).

Reference

Alabama Department of Public Health. (2017). Chapter 420-4-1. Retrieved from Alabama Public Health: http://www.alabamaadministrativecode.state.al.us/docs/hlth/420-4-1.pdf