Santos Eunice

Since November 2014, the Houston Health Department has been receiving antimicrobial resistance information for Streptococcus pneumoniae from a safety net hospital via electronic laboratory reporting (ELR). Antimicrobial characteristics and vaccination rates of pneumococcal disease are of public health interest due to potential implications in treatment and prevention. Ten states participate in the CDC’s Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs) program. Texas, which represents a different and diverse demographic compared to other states, is not an ABCs participating state. No studies have compared local antimicrobial susceptibility percentages to those of the ABCs. The aim of this study is to 1) report the antimicrobial susceptibility of S. pneumoniae in a local cohort, 2) characterize the demographics of the cohort including the use of pneumococcal vaccine, and 3) compare antimicrobial susceptibility percentages of the local cohort to the 2013 ABCs program.

Objective

Our objective is to report the antimicrobial susceptibilities of Streptococcus pneumoniae received from a local safety net hospital via electronic laboratory reporting (ELR), and compare susceptibility percentages with those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs) program.

Flu Near You allows individuals to volunteer to be a sentinel node of the syndromic surveillance (SyS) network. The platform has the potential to provide insight into the spread of influenza-like illness (ILI). CDC’s ILINet is the gold standard for tracking ILI at the national level, but does not track into the local level. Local health departments (LHD) frequently express a need for granular data specific to their jurisdictions. FNY attempts to meet this need by collecting and sharing data at the zip code level. Knowing how well FNY data correlates to ILINet data will give local health departments an important tool to communicate the arrival of influenza to their jurisdiction. However, there is significant skepticism at the quality of FNY data as compared to validated datasets.

Objective

Our objective is to provide evidence for the data quality of Flu Near You (FNY) by evaluating the national and Houston datasets against CDC ILI data.

Syndromic surveillance systems are large and complex technology projects that increasingly require large investments of financial and political capital to be sustainable. What was once a minor surveillance tool in the mid-2000s has evolved into a program that is regarded as valuable to public health yet is increasingly difficult to maintain and operate for local health departments. The Houston Health Department installed a syndromic surveillance system (SyS) six years before Meaning Use became known to healthcare communities. The system chosen at the time was the Real-time Outbreak Disease Surveillance System (RODS) which, at the time and for its purpose, was a suitable platform for syndromic surveillance. During the past 13 years however, maintaining, operating, and growing a SyS by a local health department has become increasingly difficult. Inclusion in Meaningful Use elevated the importance and profile of syndromic surveillance such that network growth, transparency of operations, ease of data sharing, and cooperation with other state systems in Texas became program imperatives.

Objective

Describe and explain the transition of the syndromic surveillance program at the Houston Health Department (HHD) from being a locally managed and aging system to an ESSENCE system governed by a regional Consortium of public health agencies and stakeholders in the 13-county area of the southeast Texas

Since 2009, Houston Health Department (HHD) uses an electronic disease surveillance system (Maven) to receive ELRs from reporting facilities in the Houston jurisdiction. Currently, two large hospital systems, a blood bank, two large commercial labs, and two public health labs are sending ELRs to Maven. The overall percentage of disease reports received via ELR was over 50%. We hypothesize that the implementation of ELR has improved the timeliness and completeness of disease surveillance.

Objective

Review 5 years of surveillance data post electronic lab reporting (ELR) implementation and 8 years of data prior to ELR, to evaluate timeliness and completeness of disease surveillance.

The Syndromic Surveillance Consortium of Southeast Texas (SSCSeT) consists of 13 stakeholders who represent 19 counties or jurisdictions in the Texas Gulf Coast region and receives health data from over 100 providers. The Houston Health Department (HHD) maintains and operates the syndromic surveillance system for the Gulf Coast region since 2007. In preparation for Meaningful Use (MU) the HHD has adapted and implemented guidance and recommendations from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and others. HHDs goal is to make it possible for providers meet MU specification by facilitating the transmission of health related data for syndromic surveillance. The timing of the transition into MU overlaps with the change in syndromic surveillance systems. 

Presenters

Eunice R. Santos, Wesley McNeely, Biru Yang and Raouf R. Arafat - Office of Surveillance and Public Health Preparedness, Houston Health Department, Houston, TX, USA