Michigan's HIV Laboratory Reporting

In December 2004, Public Act 514 became law, removing the exemption of clinical laboratories from reporting HIV test results and adding additional HIV related tests to the requirement to report.  The HIV test results that are required to be reported in Michigan are positive detection tests, such as Western Blots, and on HIV infected persons, all viral loads, and all CD4s.   

In order to make implementation as smooth as possible, we first began with a survey sent to all labs in Michigan that we knew of.  We gained this list from the Bureau of Labs.  There were two main questions we wanted answered 1) What HIV tests do you run at your facility? and 2) Where do you send specimens for HIV testing? The results of this survey showed us that all laboratories in Michigan send their specimen for HIV testing to about 20 reference labs, a handful of which were national labs already reporting results to other states' health departments.  In order to have efficient and timely reporting, we decided to ask the reference labs to report HIV results for all specimens that they run. Some of these reference laboratories already had a reporting mechanism in place and were already reporting results to MDCH.  We also decided that if we received a report from a reference lab, the originating lab would NOT also be required to report, keeping duplication of efforts to a minimum.  All reference labs agreed to try, but for some labs that were out of state it was not always possible to report HIV test results originating in Michigan.  In these instances, we asked the submitting lab to report their HIV test results. In any case, whether a facility reports their own HIV lab results, or they are being reported by a reference laboratory, all labs are still required to report results for all other communicable diseases.

For implementation purposes, those facilities that were identified to report results to MDCH were split into two phases. Phase I consisted of those laboratories running HIV western blots and other detection tests and was implemented on April 1, 2005 and Phase II consisted of those laboratories running viral loads and CD4 tests and was implemented on July 1, 2005. Any facility reporting HIV western blots and other detection tests is required to report results within 7 days of testing and CD4 and HIV viral load results are required within 30 days.

MDCH will accept HIV test results either electronically or on paper.  Electronic submission is ideal, but if a site is not able to do this, we will accept paper results, and have a program assistant on staff who enters these labs into a database.  MDCH is currently accepting electronic messages in the HL7 format as well as MS Excel and text files.  Once all results are in electronic form, they are matched to our HIV/AIDS reporting system (eHARS).  HIV detection tests (such as western blots) and detectable viral loads that do not match to an existing case in eHARS are flagged for follow up.  Undetectable viral loads and CD4s that do not match to an existing case in eHARS are counted, then deleted.  Any lab matching to a case in eHARS is given the appropriate eHARS ID number (stateno) and retained for future upload into HARS.

For more information on Michigan's HIV reporting system, please contact  Elizabeth Hamilton  at 517/335-8247

HIV Laboratory Reporting Information:

Public Act 514 FAQs (March 2005)  (PDF)

You must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in order to properly view the PDF documents. You can get a free copy of this software by visiting Adobe's website .