PHASE 2: NEW SITE STEPS TO CONNECT
Connect is the second of four onboarding phases for the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). Onboarding is a collaborative process in which the NSSP and site teams work with a facility, health department, electronic health records (EHR) vendor, or health information exchange (HIE) to transmit syndromic data from medical record systems to the NSSP BioSense Platform.
The “STEPS TO CONNECT” job aid will guide the site administrator through activities that must be completed before data can be validated. Use this job aid to configure facility feeds for the first time. Make sure local support is available to establish feed connection.
Job aids are available for planning and onboarding. Use these job aids with each other and the New Site Onboarding Guide for the BioSense Platformpdf icon, hereafter referred to as Onboarding Guide.
| PHASE 2—NEW SITE STEPS TO CONNECT | |
| SITE ADMINISTRATOR |
STEP 1: 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 2: Confirm desired upload technology. These are acceptable methods to connect to NSSP:
- SFTP (preferred)
- PHINMS (only for public health agencies and facilities with PHINMS installations that currently send data to and receive data from CDC or other PHINMS partner)
When choosing between SFTP and PHINMS, consider the following:
- Is local support available?
- Is permission required to install SFTP or PHINMS?
- Will firewall rules be affected?
- SFTP: Outbound port 22
- PHINMS: Outbound port 443
Connection method can vary if working with an HIE or other nonstandard method. Please contact the NSSP onboarding team for assistance.
STEP 3: Request feed setup and connection. For assistance, contact the NSSP Service Desk. Request one of the following:
- New-feed setup and SSH key pair for feed authentication, OR
- New-feed setup via PHINMS authentication.
STEP 4: Configure SFTP or PHINMS feed.
- Commonly used third-party SFTP tools include:
- WinSCP—http://winscp.netexternal icon
- FileZilla—https://filezilla-project.org/external icon
- Rhapsody and Mirth—Many HL7 data integration tools have SFTP capabilities and can be configured for SFTP uploads
Work with NSSP onboarding team to set up feed account and connect to staging environment.
- PHINMS
- https://www.cdc.gov/phin/tools/phinms/index.html
- To obtain the latest release of the PHINMS software, please email phintech@cdc.gov or call 1-800-532-9929.
Work with NSSP onboarding team to configure feed connection.
STEP 5: Connect to the onboarding environment.
| Upload Path | /<site_name>/<feed_name>/incoming/ |
| Server Name | stage-collect.syndromicsurveillance.org |
| IP Address | 96.127.42.102 |
| SFTP Port | 22 |
STEP 6: Once connected to onboarding environment, test connectivity by uploading a “hello world” test message to upload directory of your feed. Confirm receipt.
