The federal government is teaming up with a medical software maker based out of Kansas City to better track the spread of swine flu nationally, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced.
Cerner Corp. ( CERN – news – people ), which makes and sells electronic medical record systems to hospitals and doctors’ offices, will collect data from its records to provide information on cases of what scientists call the H1N1 virus to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health departments.
“This will give us real-time data with a snapshot across the country,” Sebelius said. “We can monitor spikes in disease, we can monitor which age group is being affected, who the most seriously ill patients are and really be able to deploy resources much more strategically.”
