MARS is Mobile At Home Reporting through Standards. When developing an application/reader under EUA, it is required that the application report results to health departments. MARS works to facilitate this. Under funding by the NIH via the RADx program and facilitated by VentureWell, Meadows Design has developed a TypeScript API capable of interfacing with both current RADx MARS hubs – AIMS (developed by APHL) and ReportStream (developed by the CDC) – in ReactNative mobile applications, NodeJS server applications, or any development environment capable of supporting TypeScript.
Mobile applications developed under the auspices of an EUA are required to follow a specific flow. That flow is defined at https://www.nibib.nih.gov/covid-19/radx-tech-program/mars/mobile-application-guidance. In addition to the flow, this page also defines the requirements for fields that must be requested as well as fields that must be gathered by the application when submitting results to a MARS hub.
Both current MARS hubs receive test results as HL7 ELR 2.5.1 messages. The MARS API developed by Meadows Design not only facilitates the delivery of messages but also the construction of HL7 ELR 2.5.1 messages themselves. This removes the burden of understanding the expansive scope of HL7 from the implementor, allowing them to focus on their detection technology and not the specifications underlying their reporting requirements.
The API developed by Meadows Design for interfacing with RADx MARS hubs has three distinct libraries: The RADx MARS Library, the AIMS MARS Library, and the ReportStream MARS Library.
The RADx MARS Library will be identified as `radx-mars-lib`` in NPM and is currently hosted on Bitbucket. It contains base class libraries representing several of the segments defined in HL7 ELR 2.5.1 messages as well as interfaces to implement by hubs in order to facßßilitate message construction and delivery to a RADx MARS hub.
Defined in this library is the MarsHubProvider interface – a key component in the RADx MARS library ecosystem. It enables RADx MARS Hubs to integrate with the RADx MARS Library by implementing this interface in their own libraries. This design allows the RADx MARS Library to remain agnostic to the specific communication methods used by individual hubs. The primary role of the MarsHubProvider interface is to standardize the message delivery mechanism, allowing the RADx MARS Library to focus on message construction while abstracting away the details of the delivery process.
Both the AIMS and ReportStream libraries depend on the RADx MARS Library and both implement their own versions of the MarsHubProvider interface. The AIMS and ReportStream libraries can be used interchangeably allowing the developer to change the RADx MARS Hub targeted by their application.
The AIMS MARS Library will be identified as aims-mars-lib in NPM and is currently hosted at Bitbucket. It contains a MarsHubProvider implementation for communicating with APHL’s AIMS MARS Hub and any supporting classes needed to fulfill the implementation.
Note: Inclusion of this library within an application does not grant the implementor access to the AIMS MARS Hub itself. The implementor’s organization must still follow the onboarding certifications and processes mandated by APHL AIMS to enable their application to report results through the APHL AIMS MARS Hub.
The ReportStream MARS Library will be identified as reportstream-mars-lib in NPM and is currently hosted at Bitbucket. It contains a MarsHubProvider implementation for communicating with the CDC’s ReportStream MARS Hub as well any necessary supporting classes.
Note: As with the APHL AIMS Mars Hub, inclusion of this library within an application does not grant the implementor access to the ReportStream MARS Hub itself. The implementor’s organization must still follow the onboarding certifications and processes mandated by the CDC to enable their application to report results through the CDC ReportStream MARS Hub.
There are two sample applications illustrating the usage of these APIs. The first sample application is this repository: radx-mars-demo. In this repository you will find code capable of submitting a test to AIMS or Report Stream as well as a sample MarsHubProvider implementation used to support debugging of messages.
A separate repository, react-native-mars-demo, to be hosted at Bitbucket, shows how one might use the API inside of a React Native application to deliver