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Biosurveillance applications for resource-limited settings: open ESSENCE and ESSENCE desktop edition

Description

More than a decade ago, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) developed the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (Enterprise ESSENCE), which is currently used by federal, state and local health authorities in the US. As emerging infections will most likely originate outside of the US (for example, SARS) the application of electronic biosurveillance is increasingly important in resource limited areas. In addition, such systems help governments respond to the recently modified International Health Regulations. Leveraging the experience gained in the development of Enterprise ESSENCE, JHU/APL has developed two freely available electronic biosurveillance systems suitable for use in resource-limited areas: Open ESSENCE (OE) and ESSENCE Desktop Edition (EDE).

 

Objective

This paper describes the development and early implementation of two freely available electronic biosurveillance software applications: OE, and EDE.

Submitted by hparton on