Grippo Jessica

The Georgia DPH has used its State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (SendSS) Syndromic Surveillance (SS) module to collect, analyze and display analyses of ED patient visits, including DDx data from hospitals throughout Georgia for early detection and investigation of cases of reportable diseases before laboratory test results are available. Evidence on the value of syndromic surveillance approaches for outbreak or event detection is limited. Use of the DDx field within datasets, specifically as it might be used for investigation of outbreaks, clusters, and / or individual cases of reportable diseases, has not been widely discussed.

Objective:

To describe how the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) uses ICD-9 and ICD-10-based discharge diagnoses (DDx) codes assigned to Emergency Department (ED) patients to support the early detection and investigation of outbreaks, clusters, and individual cases of reportable diseases.

Timeliness of emergency room (ER) data is arguably its strongest attribute in terms of its contribution to disease surveillance. Timely data analyses may improve the efficacy of prevention and control measures. There are a number of studies that have looked at timeliness prior to the advent of Meaningful Use, and these studies note that ER data were not fast enough for them to be useful in real time2,3. However, the change in messaging practices in the Meaningful Use era potentially changes this. Other studies have shown that changes in processes and protocol can dramatically improve timeliness1,4 and this motivates the current study of timeliness to identify processes that can be changed to improve timeliness.

Objective:

To explore the timeliness of emergency room surveillance data after the advent of federal Meaningful Use initiatives and determine potential areas for improvement.

During an emergency, the state of Georgia depends on public health staff and volunteers to respond. It is imperative that staff are safe before, during and after deployment. Emergency response workers must be protected from the hazardous conditions that disasters and other emergencies create1. In October 2016 and September 2017, Hurricanes Matthew and Irma caused widespread evacuation of Georgia residents, initiating a tremendous sheltering effort. Hundreds of public health responders were deployed to assist with sheltering and other aspects of the response. DPH rapidly developed a novel electronic Responder Safety, Tracking and Resilience module, which was used to track public health responders and monitor their health and safety while deployed.

Objective:

To better understand the importance of monitoring responders during public health emergencies and to learn how the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) developed and deployed an electronic responder monitoring tool.