Skip to main content

Ahmed Kamran

In 2015, ISDH responded to an HIV outbreak among persons using injection drugs in Scott County [1]. Information to manage the public health response to this event and aftermath included data from multiple sources (e.g., HIV testing, surveillance, contact tracing, medical care, and HIV prevention activities). During the outbreak, access to timely and accurate data for program monitoring and reporting was difficult for health department staff. Each dataset was managed separately and tailored to the relevant HIV program area’s needs. Our challenge was to create a platform that allowed separate systems to communicate with each other and design a DP that offered a consolidated view of data. ISDH initiated efforts to integrate these HIV data sources to better track HIV prevention, diagnosis, and care metrics statewide, support decision-making and policies, and facilitate a more rapid response to future HIV-related investigations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through its Info-Aid program provided technical assistance to support ISDH’s data integration process and develop a DP that could aggregate these data and improve reporting of crucial statewide metrics. After an initial assessment phase, an in-depth analysis of requirements resulted in several design principles and lessons learned that later translated into standardization of data formats and design of the data integration process.

Objective: The objective was to design and develop a dashboard prototype (DP) that integrates HIV data from disparate sources to improve monitoring and reporting of HIV care continuum metrics in Indiana. The tool aimed to support Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) to monitor key HIV performance indicators, more fully understand populations served, more quickly identify and respond to crucial needs, and assist in planning and decision-making.

Submitted by elamb on

Effective communicable disease control through rapid detection and prompt response to outbreaks is one of the priorities during a humanitarian crisis, as communicable diseases can be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in emergencies, particularly in countries with poor disease surveillance mechanisms. Yemen is among many developing countries being hit by conflicts, displacement of population and disruption of basic services, where among other public health risks and threats the population is exposed to risks of several communicable diseases. Thus, effective preventive and control measures through early detection and rapid identification of infectious diseases and provision of a public health response to communicable disease outbreaks, a crucial priority health intervention, need to be directed towards diseases that are endemic and particularly those which can potentially cause excess numbers of mortality and morbidity within a short span of time.

Objective

The intended objective of the Electronic Disease Early Warning System (eDEWS) is to minimize morbidity and mortality due to communicable diseases through detection of potential outbreaks at their earliest possible stage using a novel modeling approach that mainly facilitates the transformation of data into actionable information.

Submitted by knowledge_repo… on

In 2015, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) responded to a large HIV outbreak among persons who inject drugs (PWID) in Scott County. Information to manage the public health response to this event and its aftermath included data from multiple sources such as surveillance, HIV testing, contact tracing, medical care, and HIV prevention activities. Each dataset was managed separately and had been tailored to the relevant HIV program area’s needs, which is a typical practice for health departments. Currently, integrating these disparate data sources is managed manually, which makes this dataset susceptible to inconsistent and redundant data. During the outbreak investigation, access to data to monitor and report progress was difficult to obtain in a timely and accurate manner for local and state health department staff. ISDH initiated efforts to integrate these disparate HIV data sources to better track HIV prevention metrics statewide, to support decision making and policies, and to facilitate a more rapid response to future HIV-related investigations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through its Info-Aid mechanism is providing technical assistance to support assessment of the ISDH data integration process. The project is expected to lead to the development of a dashboard prototype that will aggregate and improve critical data reporting to monitor the status of HIV prevention in Scott County.

Objective:

To assess the integration process of HIV data from disparate sources for reporting HIV prevention metrics in Scott County, Indiana.

Submitted by elamb on

Infectious disease outbreaks during crises can be controlled by detecting epidemics at their earliest possible stages through cost effective and time efficient data analytical approaches. The slow or non reporting is a real gap in existing reporting systems that delays in receiving the disease alerts and outbreaks, and hence delays in response causing high burden of morbidity and mortality, especially during crises situation. As on contrary, the functioning electronic databases for fast and reliable disease early warning and response networks (EWARN) have been found very effective in early detection, confirmation and response to disease outbreaks but launching the implementation of such systems is always time consuming due to resource constraints and other limitations during crises. Hence introduction of time efficient data analytical approaches can serve as a fast and reliable alternative for electronic databases during the launching phases, and may facilitate assessment of epidemics and outbreak situation by ensuring immediate, reliable and fully functional disease reporting and analysis until online database becomes fully functional and adopted by authorities.

Objective

To assess the epidemic and outbreak situations during emergencies through development and application of a data summarization techniques while launching electronic disease early warning systems (eDEWS) in resource poor countries

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Subscribe to Ahmed Kamran