Pre-Onboarding: New Site Planning

The process

This content is part of a series of online job aids related to onboarding. These resources are meant to be used together along with New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide.

Download this job aid: Pre-Onboarding: New Site Planning

This guide outlines the activities that must be completed before submitting a Service Desk ticket to start the onboarding process. This information will be useful for a new site scheduled for or being considered for onboarding.

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Identifying your team and reviewing resources are helpful activities prior to onboarding.

STEP 1: Request new site onboarding participation at nssp@cdc.gov. Wait for a reply from the NSSP onboarding team. NSSP will:

• Assess request for prioritization
• Send out official New Site Onboarding Invitation to interested sites
• Propose an onboarding window with scheduled milestones
• Schedule kick-off call to initiate the onboarding window

STEP 2: Identify your team (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, Section 3.4, Site Roles and Responsibilities):

• Onboarding coordinator
• Site administrator(s)
• Feed administrator to establish feed connectivity
• Technical contact to develop HL7® messages
• Epidemiologist

Some duties may overlap. Duties may be performed by multiple organizations.

STEP 3: Review training and resources:

• New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide
• NSSP Technical Resources
• Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Tools and Resources
• National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) Data Validation Tools

STEP 4: Check with your organization to find out if HL7® data integration tools (e.g., Rhapsody and Mirth) are available. Both have SFTP capabilities and can be configured for data uploads.

STEP 5: Develop 30+ days of HL7® files (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, 3.2 Prerequisites) and confirm HL7® messages meet PHIN Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance and NIST standardsexternal icon.

STEP 6: Identify and engage with high-priority facilities to onboard.

STEP 7: Establish optional service-level agreements as needed and submit to NSSP Service Desk:

• Data Use Agreement (DUA) with NSSP (contact Service Desk for template)
• BioSense Onboarding Process Site Acknowledgement (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, Appendix A, Site BOPA)
• Downstream DUA (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, 3.2 Prerequisites)
• Facility BOPA (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, Appendix B)

STEP 8: Plan for data sharing and intra-site access (New Site Onboarding — The Complete Guide, 3.8 Data Sharing and Intra-Site Access).

• What adjacent or other sites are your site facilities likely to share data with (intra-site access)?
• What data will be shared? Who, specifically, will share data?
• Data sharing through Chief Complaint Query Validation tool (CCQV).

Resources