The SANER PROJECT

Situational Awareness for Novel Epidemic Response

Modernizing National Hospital Bed Capacity Reporting

The rapid spread of COVID-19 exposed critical gaps in local, state, and federal situational awareness systems. Today, most hospitals and public health authorities have limited visibility on health care capacity, supply, and staffing outside their own facility, system, or jurisdiction. This lack of a common operating picture results in inefficiency, inequity, and immense strain on the health care system and its patients during significant surge events.

To enable more timely and accurate hospital reporting, Audacious Inquiry began The SANER Project, a collaborative effort across public and private sector partners with the goal of automating hospital capacity reporting to allow for near real-time situational awareness while significantly reducing reporting burden on the healthcare providers at the frontlines of response.

A Scalable Solution for Health Care and Public Health Authorities

The SANER Project leverages a standards-based approach to ensure apples-to-apples exchange of health care situational awareness data during disasters and public health emergencies. Through application programming interfaces (APIs) using HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®), an international data sharing standard, essential elements of information can be automatically extracted from several data sources within a hospital. Data sources may include the electronic health record (EHR), bed management system, asset management system, and inventory control. Data elements include number and status of specific hospital bed types, availability of staffing, and the number of ventilators and other critical supplies. These data may be shared with other hospitals, local, state, and federal public health authorities, and relevant response organizations.

Why FHIR?

  • A unified, standardized approach – no more one-off solutions.
  • Automated reporting – more timely, accurate results.
  • Reduced provider burden – frees staff to focus on clinical care.
  • Reporting requirement flexibility – adapts to change.
  • Ability to aggregate or disaggregate data – protect patient privacy.
  • Defined data elements – reliable and precise measurements.

SANER Project Features

Reduce Reporting Burden

Reduce manual reporting burden on health care facilities, and public health authorities, and reduces error.​

Increase Standardization

Using a standard specification allows a uniform comparison across facilities, states, and regions.

Provide Real-time Data

Automatic extraction allows for real-time information regarding facility capacity that can inform operational decisions.

Timeline

2021

• January 2021: HL7 FHIR Connectathon for additional refinement and testing
• March 2021: IHE International Connectathon for further review
• April 2021: Audacious Inquiry presents to HITAC ISPTF.
• May 2021: HL7 FHIR Connectathon to test scaling of thousands of records comprising millions of resources.

2020

• March 2020: The SANER Project launched
• April 2020: HL7 and Audacious Inquiry announce collaborative effort to develop SANER IG and open source solutionssolutions.
• May 2020: HL7 FHIR Connectathon to initial test concepts and design and to identify gaps in the IG
• September 2020: HL7 FHIR Connectathon to test implementations by EPIC, Cerner, Netcare and others and test mapping and graphic interfaces.
• September 2020: THSA, HASA, Audacious Inquiry awarded STAR HIE cooperative agreement to pilot .

The SANER Project FAQs

Use the accordions to learn about frequently asked questions about the SANER Project. These questions cover a wide range of topics. If your question can not be answer please contact our team with form on the bottom of this page.

What are some examples of hospital reporting that could be streamlined through the SANER specification?
SANER captures information that public health organizations use to understand demands on a facility or within a system, such as metrics about equipment, supplies, facility infrastructure, and staff.
Who is involved in The SANER Project collaboration?
Audacious Inquiry has engaged with HIEs, EHRs, and other health IT vendors including bed management systems, medical device manufacturers, workforce management, and inventory/supply chain vendors to enable hospitals to capture key metrics. We also partner with local, state, and federal response agencies.
How does SANER transmit data?
Facilities leverage a SANER FHIR Server that can enable the automated capture of situational data elements. Hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other relevant health care organizations capture the data elements from data stores fully under their control and share the data with the SANER FHIR Server. The data is uploaded using FHIR to an intermediary, such as a public health department, health information exchange, or hospital association, that aggregates it. From there, the data can also be forwarded on to other public health authorities.
Why is The SANER Project an open-source effort?
As a B-Corporation that uses business as a force for good, Audacious Inquiry made the SANER FHIR IG available through GitHub to accelerate the accessibility of the service for COVID-19 relief. By being an open-source resource, SANER is a vendor-agnostic public utility.

News & Insights

Funding will Improve Health Information Sharing for COVID-19 Vaccination Tracking

THSA Receives Supplemental Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Expand Immunization Data Sharing

The Case for A Situational Awareness Network for Emergency Response

HL7 International and Audacious Inquiry Collaborate to Support COVID-19 Response

Press

Texas HIE Develops Clinically Integrated Network to Boost Care

THSA Receives Supplemental Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Expand Immunization Data Sharing

Hospital Vital Signs: The EHR Doesn’t Know Everything

SANER Project Coordinates Sharing of Hospital Bed Capacity and Availability of Critical Resources During COVID-19

Learn how the SANER Project can improve real-time situational awareness of health care system capacity.

A member of our helpful team will contact you to schedule a demo and answer your questions.