KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 6, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are collaborating with Cerner to create the Flu Pandemic Initiative, a secure, HIPAA-compliant, rapid detection network for the influenza virus, including H1N1. The new initiative will supply each state's public health department, Cerner (Nasdaq:CERN) clients and the CDC with situational awareness information to help communities triage resources. Currently it takes up to four days to aggregate this information; now it can be available in near-real time.

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"We face a situation fraught with uncertainty. However, with assistance from organizations such as you and your clients, we will prepare for whatever comes our way," Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius wrote in a letter to Cerner. "We look forward to engaging with you further in the critical days and months ahead."

Through the Flu Pandemic Initiative, Cerner can provide public health organizations and Cerner clients with valuable near real-time data to assist in monitoring health trends and to help officials more rapidly deploy resources to contain the influenza virus.

The initiative will not replace existing public health reporting requirements, but it will help all participants and other public health organizations make decisions based on summarized information from an integrated, national, Cerner-based network of clinical systems.

Public health experts suggest the likelihood of a severe H1N1 outbreak in the U.S. this fall is significant -- a scenario that could place unprecedented demands on our public health system and result in greater levels of serious illness and death.

"The CDC told us that before now, this data would have taken days to compile and would have already been out of date as soon as it was released," said Neal Patterson, Cerner chairman and CEO. "There is a better way. We connect more than 30 percent of healthcare to track the spread of influenza and to provide analytical data to enable a more rapid response."

Cerner's clients, who represent one-third of the U.S. healthcare system, have agreed to feed summarized, non patient-specific, HIPAA compliant data into specially designed software that will aggregate and organize it for use nationally, as well as locally and regionally. Cerner is providing the software, aggregation and dissemination services without charge to the providers and government officials. Currently more than 700 facilities in 46 U.S.