Data Element
Travel Plans Location
Description

Represents a location in a person’s travel plans (either an address or a coded location).
Submitted By: Craig Newman / Altarum
Data Element Information
Data Element Description Represents a location in a person’s travel plans (either an address or a coded location).
Use Case Description(s)
Use Case Description o Exposures to communicable disease and environmental pathogens during travel pose a risk for importation of nonendemic, emerging, or antimicrobial-resistant pathogens to the United States. For this reason, it is important for public health officials to receive discrete and accurate travel history information about patients, including locations of travel. This information is particularly important during outbreaks.
o Geographic travel history, specifically the countries in which a person was located prior to illness onset, is essential to determine the location of exposure for a diagnosed infectious disease, or to formulate a complete differential diagnosis for illnesses of unknown etiology, based on known epidemiology of diseases not endemic to the United States or outbreak information.
o During periods when outbreaks are occurring in an international location with risk of case importation to the United States, identifying travel-associated cases is essential to ensure appropriate public health management of case-patients and contacts as well as to inform guidance for travelers or clinicians or public health policy.
o In some situations, cases in travelers may serve as sentinel events in identifying new or re-emerging pathogens or previously unidentified outbreaks.
o Surveillance for travel-associated disease importation and spread also informs travel health prevention and treatment recommendations for travelers and clinicians.
Estimate the breadth of applicability of the use case(s) for this data element o Travel history would be reported in all jurisdictions as part of electronic case reporting.
o Healthcare providers – physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and physician assistant
o 50 states Local and State health department
o CDC Division Global Migration and Quarantine
o Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
o Currently built into national case notifications to CDC for 25 reportable conditions using the case notification HL7 message mapping guide format. Anticipate within the next couple of years to make travel history available for all notifiable conditions
Healthcare Aims
  • Improving patient experience of care (quality and/or satisfaction)
  • Improving the health of populations
  • Improving provider experience of care
Maturity of Use and Technical Specifications for Data Element
Applicable Standard(s) § SNOMED: 420008001 |Travel (event)|
§ Geographical location history (https://phinvads.cdc.gov/vads/ViewValueSet.action?oid=2.16.840.1.114222.4.do 11.3201)
§ ISO 3166 country codes (https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html)
§ NCI_Thesaurus 22.08e: code C173619
§ LOINC v2.72 code: PhenX measure - international travel history:-:Pt:^Patient:-:PhenX (Code 62887-5)
Additional Specifications § HL7 FHIR® Implementation Guide: Electronic Case Reporting (eCR) http://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7/case-reporting/StructureDefinition-us-ph-travel-history.html
Current Use Not currently captured or accessed with an organization
Extent of exchange N/A
Potential Challenges
Restrictions on Standardization (e.g. proprietary code) None
Restrictions on Use (e.g. licensing, user fees) None
Privacy and Security Concerns o Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/index.html)
Estimate of Overall Burden These data elements are straightforward in nature and should not present a large burden to implement provided the EHR system is capturing the data.
ASTP Evaluation Details
Each submitted Data Element has been evaluated based on the following criteria. The overall Level classification is a composite of the maturity based on these individual criteria. This information can be used to identify areas that require additional work to raise the overall classification level and consideration for inclusion in future versions of USCDI
Criterion #1
Maturity - Current Standards		 Level 2 - Data element is represented by a terminology standard or SDO-balloted technical specification or implementation guide.
Criterion #2
Maturity - Current Use 		Level 2 - Data element is captured, stored, or accessed in multiple production EHRs or other HIT modules from more than one developer.
Criterion #3
Maturity - Current Exchange		 Level 0 - Data element is electronically exchanged in limited environments, such as connectathons or pilots.
Criterion #4
Use Case(s) - Breadth of Applicability		 Level 0 - Use cases apply to a limited number of care settings or specialties, or data element represents a specialization of other, more general data elements.
Evaluation Comment This data element represents a very specific finding or observation primarily used for public health investigation.

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