From leadership research to district action: Addressing Sexually Transmitted Disease Management Through Practitioner Education on Florida Reporting Requirements in Manatee County: A Quality Improvement Initiative

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

Read source Search paper agent CC BY 4.0

Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Introduction: Successful public health interventions depend on accurate disease surveillance, which can be hindered by inconsistent reporting of confirmed cases of disease by practitioners. This quality improvement project aimed to develop an intervention that will lead to an increase in the number of practitioner disease reporting forms (PDRFs) submissions to the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County (DOH-Manatee) for all sexually transmitted disease and infection (STD/STI)-positive laboratory results. Methods: Following the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) 2.0 Guidelines, the Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology was utilized and led to the use of a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative analysis included comparing the number of positive STD/STI tests to the number of submitted PDRFs. The qualitative data collection included surveys with Disease Intervention Specialists (DIS) at the DOH-Manatee to identify successful practices, challenges with practitioners, and factors preventing follow-up. Interventions included creation of an email and letter containing Florida Statutes reporting guidelines, standardized PDRFs, and clear submission instructions. The intervention is on hold, pending approval of the design and outreach plan by DOH-Manatee and the Florida Department of Health. Results: Of the three DOH-Manatee DIS, two responded. They reported barriers to form submission, including limited practitioner education on reporting guidelines, insufficient patient contact information on laboratory reports, and lack of practitioners’ knowledge of DIS jurisdiction. Notably, both survey responders indicated uncertainty about tracking processes for positive laboratory results and PDRFs. Interventions that have been successful in the past included DIS members visiting practitioner offices and speaking with them directly. Per DOH-Manatee DIS, Manatee County had 196 positive tests, but only 45 PDRFs (23%) were faxed in July 2025. Discussion: Underreporting of PDRFs impacts efforts to control rates of STDs/STIs by delaying patient treatment and follow-up services. Limitations included restricted access to DOH-Manatee data, switching from focus group to survey methodology, and leadership turnover affecting internal operations. Conclusion: Stronger practitioner education and collaboration between healthcare systems and public health should enhance reporting compliance and reduce ongoing transmission. Planned interventions include targeted practitioner education on Florida Statutes reporting requirements and clarification of practitioner roles in disease transmission prevention. These outreach efforts will be continued internally within the quality improvement (QI) division of the DOH-Manatee.

Study methods

MC has a high STD/STI burden when compared to peer counties, emphasizing the need for intervention. There are known discrepancies between positive laboratory results and submitted PDRFs. This underreporting is concerning, as practitioners have a legal obligation to report any diseases included in the reportable diseases outlined by the FLDOH in a timely fashion. The lack of a standardized tracking system further complicates the issue, as there is poor workflow between practitioners and DOH-Manatee. The DOH-Manatee felt there may have been knowledge gaps concerning practitioner reporting requirements and the role of the DIS within the DOH-Manatee. Many practitioners still rely on faxing and manual systems for reporting, further limiting compliance. The DOH-Manatee had noticed that Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and community clinics are among the highest reporters, while others such as emergency rooms, urgent cares, and private practices rank among the lowest.

Limitations

The generalizability of this project may be limited due to its focus on DOH-Manatee. These findings may not fully apply to other departments of health both within and outside of Florida, as well as regions with different organizational structures or practitioner networks.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Christina N Bobrek; Claudia R Silver; Zade Moureiden; Cynthia Samra; Anastasia Peele. Addressing Sexually Transmitted Disease Management Through Practitioner Education on Florida Reporting Requirements in Manatee County: A Quality Improvement Initiative. Cureus (2026-08-03). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.113853

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.