CPSC says injury surveillance overhaul will reach all 50 states by 2027

By Atlas Watchline Staff · Regulatory · July 24, 2026

The agency says NEISS-R will replace a paper-era injury tracking model with broader hospital coverage, electronic data exchange and new privacy safeguards.

The agency says NEISS-R will replace a paper-era injury tracking model with broader hospital coverage, electronic data exchange and new privacy safeguards.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in Washington, D.C., that it is modernizing the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, its main tool for tracking consumer product-related injuries nationwide.

The modernized system will be called NEISS-Remodel, or NEISS-R, the agency said. CPSC said it expects the system to become fully effective by the beginning of 2027.

The change affects how the federal product safety agency receives and analyzes emergency department injury data. CPSC said the older system was designed in 1972 for a paper-record era and relied on manual review and coding of medical records from about 70 hospital emergency departments.

Why it matters

CPSC said the overhaul is intended to expand nationwide coverage, speed hazard detection and improve privacy protections for injury data. The agency said the legacy system drew from about 70 hospitals among more than 5,000 hospital emergency departments nationwide, leaving 14 states without participating hospitals.

That structure limited geographic reach and slowed analysis, according to the agency. CPSC said it also reduced the agency’s ability to identify rare hazards and product risks that emerge quickly.

The agency said broader surveillance could help it spot consumer product hazards sooner and support earlier warnings, recalls and other protective action. The release said consumer product-related deaths, injuries and property damage cost the nation more than $1 trillion each year.

Key facts and figures

NEISS-R will expand surveillance across all 50 states, according to CPSC. The agency said it will add hospitals in Alaska, Hawaii, the Mountain West and northern states that were previously underrepresented or not represented in the system.

CPSC said the broader hospital sample is expected to improve detection of region-specific hazards and strengthen statistical reliability. The agency said the modernized system will use electronic health records infrastructure and secure, standardized electronic data exchange rather than relying on the older manual-review model.

The release said NEISS-R will exchange data through a federally designated Qualified Health Information Network. CPSC said the system will include contractual privacy requirements and standardized security safeguards.

Background

NEISS has long served as the federal government’s core consumer product injury surveillance system, according to CPSC. It was designed in 1972, when hospital records were handled on paper and federal injury surveillance depended on manual coding of emergency department records.

CPSC said that model helped the agency track injuries, but the agency now describes it as outdated for a country with more than 5,000 hospital emergency departments and uneven participation across states.

The agency also said it has moved from an on-premises technology environment to a cloud-based architecture built on standardized federal security controls.

What the agency said

CPSC said NEISS-R is intended to replace the older model with secure, standardized electronic data exchange, broader geographic representation and faster injury surveillance.

The agency said the system will limit collection and retention to the minimum data needed for CPSC’s statutory mission. It also said NEISS-R will support de-identification before information reaches CPSC and reduce manual handling of sensitive records.

CPSC said it has worked to ensure the safety of consumer products for more than 50 years.

What happens next

CPSC said NEISS-R is expected to become fully effective by the beginning of 2027. Until then, the agency’s modernization work is focused on expanding the hospital sample, shifting data exchange to the electronic system and applying the privacy and security controls described in the release.

Related fact-checks

No related fact-checks found.

Sources

• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission news release

Editorial note: This article was prepared with AI assistance and requires editorial review before publication.

This is the AMP version of the article. Read the full article on Atlas Watchline.