In the early hours of a disease outbreak, every hour counts. The CDC and its public health partners across the nation are building a faster, smarter infrastructure to detect threats before they spread—one that connects previously siloed data systems so health officials can see the same real-time picture and act in unison.
The modernization effort addresses a critical gap in American public health. For decades, emergency departments, laboratories, hospitals, and state health agencies operated with disconnected systems, forcing workers to manually piece together fragmented information. A health threat in one corner of the country might go undetected while precious response time slipped away. By investing in people, streamlining processes, and scaling new technology, the CDC is fundamentally reshaping how the nation detects and responds to health emergencies.
The progress is measurable and tangible. Today, 85 percent of the nation's emergency department visits are available for situational awareness—most within 24 hours—providing early warnings for health threats in communities. Over 60,000 facilities are actively sending electronic initial case reports to public health agencies, dramatically speeding up the data-sharing process. Laboratories alone submit 360,000 commercial specimen results daily across 167 conditions, painting a broad picture of what's circulating. The infrastructure now receives 69 percent of deaths from provisional mortality data within 10 days, up from just 10 percent in 2010—a sevenfold improvement that gives health officials a clearer, faster picture of disease severity.
One of the most innovative pillars of this modernization is wastewater surveillance. More than 1,500 reporting sites are now submitting testing data for COVID-19, flu, RSV, monkeypox, and other pathogens, serving as an early warning system for emerging infections before people even fall sick. Fifteen jurisdictions are sharing hospital bed capacity data with the CDC, giving hospitals, healthcare providers, and emergency services real-time visibility into system strain.
The backbone of this transformation is the One CDC Data Platform (1CDP), a centralized data integration hub that eliminates duplicative systems and streamlines access. When public health partners see the same real-time data, decision-making improves and response becomes coordinated rather than fragmented. Six core data sources—emergency department, case, and laboratory data—are already live in the platform, enabling faster visualization and action.
The CDC's broader strategy embraces artificial intelligence as a tool to free public health workers from manual tasks so they can focus on what matters most: protecting people. The agency has outlined clear principles around transparency, security, and human oversight to guide the responsible use of generative AI across public health systems.
Yet challenges remain. Outdated technology, complicated processes, and systems that don't work well together still impede response in many jurisdictions. The CDC's Public Health Data Strategy serves as a dynamic roadmap, guiding the nation toward an infrastructure that is responsive, connected, and sustainable. This is work measured not in weeks but in years—an ambitious, all-of-public-health approach that integrates investment in people, streamlined processes, and modern technology. As health threats continue to evolve, so must the systems designed to catch them.