641—1.4 (135,139A) Reporting of reportable communicable and infectious diseases. Each case of a reportable disease is required to be reported to the Iowa Department of Public Health, Lucas State Office Building, 321 E. 12th Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0075, in a manner specified by this chapter.
	 1.4(1) Who is required to report communicable and infectious diseases.
	  a.   	 Health care providers, hospitals, clinical laboratories, and other health care facilities are required to report cases of reportable communicable and infectious diseases. Health care providers and hospitals are exempted from reporting communicable and infectious disease laboratory results if the health care provider or hospital ensures that the laboratory performing the analysis provides a report containing the required information to the department.
	  b.   	 School nurses are required to report suspected cases of reportable diseases occurring among the children supervised.
	  c.   	 School officials, through the principal or superintendent as appropriate, are required to report when there is no school nurse.
	  d.   	 Laboratories are required to report cases of reportable diseases and results obtained in the examination of all specimens which yield evidence of or are reactive for sexually transmitted diseases.
	  e.   	 Poison control and poison information centers are required to report inquiries about cases of reportable diseases received by them.
	  f.   	 Medical examiners are required to report their investigatory findings of any death which was caused by or otherwise involved a reportable disease.
	  g.   	 Occupational nurses are required to report cases of reportable diseases.
	  h.   	 Hospitals, health care providers and clinical laboratories outside the state of Iowa shall immediately report any confirmed or suspect case of a reportable disease, poisoning or condition in an Iowa resident.
	 1.4(2) What to report. Each report shall contain all of the following information:
	  a.   	 The patient’s name.
	  b.   	 The patient’s address.
	  c.   	 The patient’s date of birth.
	  d.   	 The sex of the patient.
	  e.   	 The race and ethnicity of the patient.
	  f.   	 The patient’s marital status.
	  g.   	 The patient’s telephone number.
	  h.   	 The name and address of the laboratory.
	  i.   	 The date the test was found to be positive and the collection date.
	  j.   	 The name and address of the health care provider who performed the test
	  k.   	 If the patient is female, whether the patient is pregnant.
	  l.   	 The name of the reportable disease.
	 1.4(3) How to report.
	  a.   	 Immediate reporting by telephone of diseases identified in Appendix A as immediately reportable. A health care provider and a public, private, or hospital clinical laboratory shall immediately report any confirmed or suspected case of a disease identified in Appendix A as immediately reportable to the department’s disease notification hotline at 1-800-362-2736. The report shall include all information required by 1.4(2) and the following:
	 (1) 	 The stage of the disease process.
	 (2) 	 Clinical status.
	 (3) 	 Any treatment provided for the disease.
	 (4) 	 All household and other known contacts.
	 (5) 	 Whether household and other known contacts have been examined and the results of such examinations.
	  b.   	 Other diseases that carry serious consequences or spread rapidly. A health care facility, health care provider and a public, private, or hospital clinical laboratory shall immediately report any confirmed or suspected case of a common source epidemic or disease outbreak of unusual numbers by telephone to the department’s 24/7 disease reporting telephone hotline at 1-800-362-2736.
	  c.   	 Reporting of other reportable diseases. Cases of other reportable communicable or infectious diseases not included in 1.4(3)“a” shall be reported to the department in accordance with Appendix A by mail, telephone, facsimile, or other secure electronic means. The preferred method is secure Web-based reporting when available. If the department determines that reporting by mail hinders the application of organized control measures to protect the public health, the department may require that the reportable disease be reported by telephone, facsimile or secure Web-based reporting.
	 1.4(4) Contagious or infectious disease notification at time of death. The purpose of this subrule is to establish contagious or infectious disease notification requirements for the information of any person handling a dead body.
	  a.   	 A health care provider attending a person prior to the person’s death shall, at the time of death, place with the body a written notice which specifies or signifies either “known contagious or infectious disease” or “suspected contagious or infectious disease.”
	  b.   	 The health care facility in which the health care provider is working shall be responsible for establishing written procedures and implementing the specific internal practices necessary to satisfy this notification requirement.
[ARC 8231B, IAB 10/7/09, effective 11/11/09; ARC 0754C, IAB 5/29/13, effective 7/3/13]