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Hamilton Janet

Description

On 12 January 2010 at 1652 hours local time, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and created enormous devastation. Florida, as the state closest to Haiti, became an initial focal point for assisting the federal repatriation and humanitarian parolee efforts. Florida supported shipments of personnel and relief supplies into Haiti, and served as the point of entry for repatriated U.S. citizens and those evacuated from Haiti for medical care. As of 9 February 2010, there were 22,500 arrivals in Florida from Haiti related to repatriation and medical humanitarian missions. These patients primarily arrived in Miami, Tampa and Orlando areas. Approximately 650 people arrived in Florida during this period as medical evacuees, and were transported to and often directly admitted to hospitals for treatment of severe or complicated injuries. Some of these patients also generated emergency department (ED) visits on arrival.

Objective

To describe the public health surveillance efforts designed to measure syndromic and disease-specific conditions in patients who were in Haiti during or after the earthquake, and evacuated to Florida.

Submitted by uysz on
Description

On September 10, 2017, Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 hurricane and subsequently tracked up the west side of the state. Due to the size of the storm, it impacted nearly all of Florida. The Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL), the state’s syndromic surveillance system, captures 98% of the emergency department (ED) visits statewide and has historically served a vital function in providing near real-time ED data that are used to track post-disaster morbidity and mortality. After previous hurricanes and tropical storms, increases in carbon monoxide poisonings, animal bites, and injuries have been documented. During post-Irma surveillance, an additional increase in seizure-related ED visits was observed.

Objective: Using Florida's syndromic surveillance data, to describe the increase in seizure activity in the days after Hurricane Irma made landfall in 2017

Submitted by elamb on
Description

Syndromic surveillance has become an integral component of public health surveillance efforts within the state of Florida. The near real-time nature of these data are critical during events such as the Zika virus outbreak in Florida in 2016 and in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in 2017. Additionally, syndromic surveillance data are utilized to support daily reportable disease detection and other surveillance efforts. Although syndromic systems typically utilize emergency department (ED) visit data, ESSENCE-FL also includes data from non-traditional sources: urgent care center visit data, mortality data, reportable disease data, and Florida Poison Information Center Network (FPICN) data. Inclusion of these data sources within the same system enables the broad accessibility of the data to more than 400 users statewide, and allows for rapid visualization of multiple data sources in order to address public health needs. Currently, the ESSENCE-FL team is actively working to incorporate EMS data into ESSENCE-FL to further increase public health surveillance capacity and data visualization.

Objective: To describe the strategy and process used by the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) Bureau of Epidemiology to onboard emergency medical services (EMS) data into FDOH’s syndromic surveillance system, the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL).

Submitted by elamb on
Description

Federal laws and national directives have focused attention on the development of more robust biosurveillance systems intended to detect events of public health interest in a timelier manner. Presidential Decision Directive 21 calls for integrated biosurveillance data, enhanced clinician awareness, and an epidemiologic surveillance system with sufficient flexibility to tailor analyses to new syndromes and emerging diseases. In 2007, a statewide syndromic surveillance system (ESSENCE) was implemented and hospitals were recruited to participate. Experience with ESSENCE in the context of the ED data analysis, visualization, and reporting prompted the exploration of integrating new data sources into ESSENCE and new analyses specific to these new data. The purpose of the ESSENCE system is now to provide an intuitive environment for state and local epidemiologists to conduct routine descriptive epidemiologic analysis, to monitor morbidity and mortality trends over time and space and across multiple data sources, thereby providing information that can assist with making decisions on how to improve population health.

Objective

Use of the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE) in Florida has evolved from early event detection based on emergency department (ED) chief complaints to routine descriptive epidemiologic analysis, data visualization, and reporting across four different data sources, using and building on tools originally developed for syndromic surveillance.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

In light of recent communicable disease outbreaks, the ability of Florida Department of HealthÕs (FDOH) syndromic surveillance system, ESSENCE-FL, to identify emergent disease outbreaks using reportable disease data and algorithms originally designed for emergency department chief complaint data was examined. Preliminary work on this analysis presented last year was recently updated and expanded to include additional diseases, further levels of locale, and detector algorithm comparisons. Cases are entered into Merlin, the Bureau of EpidemiologyÕs secure web-based reporting and epidemiologic analysis system, by all 67 county health departments and the de-identified case data are sent hourly to ESSENCE-FL. These data are then available for ad hoc queries, allowing users to observe unusual changes in disease activity and assist in timely identification of infectious disease outbreaks. Based on system algorithms, weekly case tallies are assigned an increasing intensity awareness status from normal to alert and are monitored by county and state epidemiologists to guide timely disease control efforts, but may not by themselves be definitive actionable information.

Objective

To determine if there is an association between known outbreak activity and ESSENCE generated alerts. 

Submitted by elamb on
Description

The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) electronically receives both urgent care center (UCC) data and hospital emergency department (ED) data from health care facilities in 43 of its 67 counties through its Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL). Each submitted record is assigned to one of eleven ESSENCE Syndrome categories based on parsing of chief complaint data. The UCC data come from 22 urgent care centers located in Central Florida, and the ED data come from 161 hospitals located across the state. Traditionally, the data from these two sources are grouped and viewed together. To date, limited investigation has been carried out on the validity of grouping data from UCCS and EDs in ESSENCE-FL. This project will investigate and describe the differences between the data received from these two sources and provide best practices for grouping and analyzing these data sources.

Objective

To identify best practices for grouping emergency department and urgent care data in a syndromic surveillance system.

Submitted by knowledge_repo… on
Description

Reportable disease case data are entered into Merlin by all 67 county health departments in Florida and assigned confirmed, probable, or suspect case status. De-identified reportable disease data from Merlin are sent to ESSENCE-FL once an hour for further analysis and visualization using tools in the surveillance system. These data are available for ad hoc queries, allowing users to monitor disease trends, observe unusual changes in disease activity, and to provide timely situational awareness of emerging events. Based on system algorithms, reportable disease case weekly tallies are assigned an awareness status of increasing intensity from normal to an alert category. These statuses are constantly scrutinized by county and state level epidemiologists to guide disease control efforts in a timely manner, but may not signify definitive actionable information.

 

Objective

In light of recent outbreaks of pertussis, the ability of Florida Department of Health’s (FDOH) Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL) to detect emergent disease outbreaks was examined. Through a partnership with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), FDOH developed a syndromic surveillance system, ESSENCE-FL, with the capacity to monitor reportable disease case data from Merlin, the FDOH Bureau of Epidemiology’s secure webbased reporting and epidemiologic analysis system for reportable diseases. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine the utility and application of ESSENCE-FL system generated disease warnings and alerts originally designed for use with emergency department chief complaint data to reportable disease data to assist in timely detection of outbreaks in promotion of appropriate response and control measures.

Submitted by hparton on
Description

Florida has implemented various surveillance methods to augment existing sources of surveillance data and enhance decision making with timely evidence based assessments to guide response efforts post-hurricanes. Historically, data collected from deployed federal assets have been an integral part of this effort. However, a number of factors have made this type of surveillance challenging: logistical is- sues of field work in a post-disaster environment, the resource inten- sive manual data collection process from DMAT sites, and delayed analysis and interpretation of these data to inform decision makers. The ESSENCE-FL system is an automated and secure web-based ap- plication accessed by FDOH epidemiologists and staff at participat- ing hospitals.

Objective

The Florida Department of Health (FDOH), Bureau of Epidemi- ology, partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to improve surveillance methods in post dis- aster or response events. A new process was implemented for con- ducting surveillance to monitor injury and illness for those presenting for care to ASPR assets such as Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) sites when they are operational in the state. The purpose of the current work was to field test and document the operational ex- perience of the newly implemented ASPR data module in ESSENCE- FL (syndromic surveillance system) to receive near real-time automated data feeds when ASPR federal assets were deployed in Florida during the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC).

Submitted by dbedford on
Description

ASPR deploys clinical assets, including an EMR system, to the ground per state requests during planned and no-notice events. The analysis of patient data collected by deployed federal personnel is an integral part of ASPR and FDOH’s surveillance efforts. However, this surveillance can be hampered by the logistical issues of field work in a post-disaster environment leading to delayed analysis and interpretation of these data to inform decision makers at the federal, state, and local levels. FDOH operates ESSENCE-FL, a multi-tiered, automated, and secure web-based application for analysis and visualization of clinical data. The system is accessible statewide by FDOH staff as well as by hospitals that participate in the system. To improve surveillance ASPR and FDOH engaged in a pilot project whereby EMR data from ASPR would be sent to FDOH in near realtime during the 2012 hurricane season and the 2012 RNC. This project is in direct support of Healthcare Preparedness Capability 6, Information Sharing, and Public Health Preparedness Capability 13, Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation.

Objective:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) partnered with the Florida Department of Health (FDOH), Bureau of Epidemiology, to implement a new process for the unidirectional exchange of electronic medical record (EMR) data when ASPR clinical assets are operational in the state following a disaster or other response event. The purpose of the current work was to automate the exchange of data from the ASPR electronic medical record system EMR-S into the FDOH Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL) system during the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC).

 

 

 



 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

A seroprevalence survey carried out in four counties in the Tampa Bay area of Florida (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Pasco) provided an estimate of cumulative incidence of infection due to the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) as of the end of that year’s pandemic. During the pandemic, high-level decison-makers wanted timely, credible forecasts as to the likely near-term course of the pandemic. The cumulative percentage of people who will be infected by the end of the epidemic can be estimated from the intrinsic reproductive number of the viral strain, its R0 , which can be measured early in the epidemic. If the current cumulative number of infections can be estimated, then one can determine what fraction of the eventual total number of infected people have already been infected.

Objective

To estimate the number of infections due to the novel 2009 influenza A/H1N1 virus corresponding to each ED visit for ILI in a four-county area of Florida. Knowing such ratios, one could (in future similar situations) estimate the cumulative number of infections due to a novel influenza virus in a population.

Submitted by rmathes on