Lifshitz Edward

On July 11, 2012, New Jersey Department of Health (DOH) Communicable Disease Service (CDS) surveillance staff received email notification of a statewide anomaly in EpiCenter for Paralysis. Two additional anomalies followed within three hours. Since Paralysis Anomalies are uncommon, staff initiated an investigation to determine if there was an outbreak or other event of concern taking place. Also at question was whether receipt of multiple anomalies in such a short time span was statistically or epidemiologically significant.

Objective

To describe the investigation of a statewide anomaly detected by a newly established state syndromic surveillance system and usage of that system.

In the summer of 2013, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) began planning for Super Bowl XLVIII to be held on February 2, 2014, in Met Life Stadium, located in the Meadowlands of Bergen County. Surveillance and epidemiology staff in the Communicable Disease Service (CDS) provided expertise in planning for disease surveillance activities leading up to, during, and after the game. A principal component of NJDOH’s Super Bowl surveillance activities included the utilization of an existing online syndromic surveillance system, EpiCenter. EpiCenter is a system developed by Health Monitoring Systems, Inc. (HMS) that incorporates statistical management and analytical techniques to process health-related data in real time. As of February, 2014, 75 of New Jersey’s 81 acute care and satellite emergency departments (EDs) were connected to this system. CDS staff primarily used EpiCenter to monitor ED visits for unusual activity and disease outbreaks during this event. In addition, NJDOH and HMS implemented enhanced reports and expanded monitoring of visit complaints.

Objective

To describe the surveillance planning and activities for a largescale event (Super Bowl XLVIII) using New Jersey’s syndromic surveillance system (EpiCenter).