Skip to main content

Hoferka Stacey

Description

BioSense 2.0 has become a platform for technical receipt and analysis of syndromic surveillance data for many jurisdictions nationwide, as well as a collaborative effort that has engaged a larger community of syndromic surveillance practitioners, Governance Group, and federal agencies and organizations. The potential longterm benefits of BioSense 2.0 for resource and data sharing have at times been overshadowed by the short-term limitations of the system and disconnected efforts among the CoP. In May 2014, representatives from 41 jurisdictions attended a 2-day, in-person meeting where four workgroups were formed to address on-boarding, data quality, data sharing and syndrome definition in an effort to advance changes that resonate with actual surveillance practice.

Objective

This roundtable will provide a forum for the syndromic surveillance Community of Practice (CoP) to learn about activities of the BioSense 2.0 User Group (BUG) workgroups that address priority issues in syndromic surveillance. It will be an opportunity to discuss key challenges faced by public health jurisdictions in the era of Meaningful Use and identify further needs and best practices in the areas of data quality, data sharing, onboarding, and developing syndrome definitions.

 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Violence is now clearly recognized as a public health problem. Intentional injuries ranked among the top six leading causes of death for Illinois residents aged 1-44 in 2013. The Illinois Department of Public Health currently collects data on violent injuries and deaths from emergency medical services reports, death certificates, coroner/ medical examiner reports, law enforcement reports, and crime lab reports. However, syndromic surveillance provides near real-time data on violence-related emergency department visits that would increase the timeliness and quality of data available for public health interventions.

Objective

Our objective was to measure the incidence and prevalence of intentional violent injury and death using Illinois’ syndromic surveillance system.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

Syndromic surveillance requires reliable, accurate, and complete healthcare encounter data to assess patterns of illness and respond to public health events. Illinois implemented syndromic surveillance statewide in response to Meaningful Use reporting objectives. To address the need for continuous, automated assessment following initial on-boarding of facility Emergency Department data, we developed an R script to assess the quality of data in the private BioSense locker database.

This script builds upon and adapts from scripts previously developed for syndromic surveillance and data quality assessment.

Objective

To describe an R script developed to assess and produce reports on data quality in the BioSense locker database.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on

ISDS Conference Call to discuss surveillance for severe respiratory illness / Enterovirus D68. This call will be an opportunity for syndromic surveillance practitioners to share their experiences conducting their contribution to surveillance for Enterovirus D68.



Discussion topics will include, but not be limited to, the following:

- Which syndromes are being used for surveillance of this issue? Respiratory? Asthma? ILI? Others?

- Are admissions being tracked?

- What age groups, if any, are being used?

Description

CRE are drug-resistant bacteria that have a mortality rate of up to 50% in those infected. Several clusters of CRE have been detected in Illinois, often in long-term acute care hospitals. In response, Illinois created the XDRO registry, a mandatory reporting system designed to aid inter-facility communication concerning CRE.

Despite being a high priority for control in the US, the case definition for CRE has been the subject of debate3. There are over 70 Enterobacteriaceae which can have different mechanisms of carbapenem resistance. Criteria for carbapenem resistance include susceptibility results and phenotypic or genotypic detection. The case definition for the XDRO registry is intentionally more exclusive (specific) than that used by CSTE (Table 1). CSTE utilizes a definition designed to maximize sensitivity. Illinois’ XDRO registry’s definition is more specific, meant to reduce unnecessary adoption of contact precautions and the negative consequences some patients may experience.

Currently, case reporting to the XDRO registry is a manual data entry process, which has important advantages. However, transitioning to automatic ELR integration will streamline the reporting process and minimize data entry effort. Unfortunately, the clinical information needed to investigate XDROs is often not captured by ELR. The eCR is a new message type being piloted in Illinois that contains many clinical data elements. We examined the feasibility of combining ELR and eCR into reports for the XDRO registry. In the construction of these reports, we examined the impact of using CRE definitions from CSTE and the XDRO registry. 

Objective

To streamline carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE) surveillance by integrating electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) data and electronic case reports (eCR) automatically into Illinois’ extensively drug-resistant organism (XDRO) registry. 

Submitted by Magou on

To provide community input on data quality issues and enhance data quality through sharing and testing of scripts.

Summary of activities:

The Data Quality workgroup has worked to address Data Quality issues through the development, sharing and testing of scripts. The Data Quality workgroup formed a DQ EHR-Vendor Concern Subcommittee to address issues across vendors nationwide. 

Submitted by uysz on