---
id: "coronavirus-smarter-crowdsourcing:strategies/Develop-and-advocate-for-a-legislative-framework-f"
type: "GovLab policy strategy"
title: "Develop and advocate for a legislative framework for public health monitoring and surveillance health data."
url: "https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/develop-and-advocate-for-a-legislative-framework-f"
summary: "Develop and advocate for a legislative framework for public health monitoring and surveillance health data."
source: "The GovLab (coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Develop and advocate for a legislative framework for public health monitoring and surveillance health data.

Develop and advocate for a legislative framework for public health monitoring and surveillance health data.

- Timeframe: 6-12 Months (long)
- Audience: Government Workers
- Type: Policy/Legislative/Regulatory, Data
- Recommendation: [Improve Information Infrastructure](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations/improve-information-infrastructure)
- Part of: [Smarter Crowdsourcing in the Age of Coronavirus](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/)

## Actions governments should take

1. Conduct an analysis of existing regulatory and legislative mechanisms that may hinder or inhibit collecting, standardizing or sharing data.
2. Issue temporary executive orders to enable data sharing while working toward a more durable and long-term regulatory and legislative solution. Use executive orders or other regulatory or legislative authorities to incentivize data sharing.
3. Advocate for and develop new or replacement legislation and regulations that codify processes and mechanisms for open data sharing and interoperability of data structures and systems.
4. Pass legislation or regulations that allows for controlled access to clinical data and the secondary use of that data.
5. Use an executive order to direct all agencies to open the data they have related to measuring the impact of COVID, including both public health and economic data and data relevant to measuring impact on minority and vulnerable populations.
6. issue a statistical policy directive establishing any needed public health data standards to improve national, local and non-governmental reporting of information necessary to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Any new data standard or directive should apply consensus, voluntary standards to the extent practicable.
7. Adopt a standard that is used to transport the data when you don’t know who the recipient is. Examples of data sharing models include [HL7 - FHIR](https://www.hl7.org/) and [N3C](https://covid.cd2h.org/) (N3C Data Enclave is a secure platform through which the harmonized clinical data provided by our contributing members is stored).
8. For existing legislation, develop proposed replacement legislation and advocate for this legislation through the appropriate legislative processes and procedures.
9. Reduce the regulatory burdens that hinder or inhibit data sharing between jurisdictions.

## Examples from around the world

1. [The Operational Framework for Mutual Aid Requests (OFMAR) is a mechanism that allows Provincial/Territorial (PT) governments to identify and share healthcare assets and professionals throughout jurisdictions. It has also established procedures to conduct emergency registration of healthcare professionals in other jurisdictions to ensure they are available to travel to the areas where they are most needed.](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/health-professionals/covid-19-pandemic-guidance-health-care-sector.html)