The Florida Department of Health (DOH) utilizes the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community Based Epidemics (ESSENCE-FL) as its statewide syndromic surveillance system. ESSENCE-FL comprises of chief complaint data from 231 of 240 EDs, representing 96 percent of the total number of EDs in Florida. Historically, syndromic surveillance has categorized patient chief complaint data into syndromes for the purpose of disease surveillance or outbreak detection. Triage notes are much longer freetext, pre-diagnostic data that capture the presenting symptoms and complaints of a patient.

Objective

This study assesses the utilization of triage notes from emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care centers (UCCs) for active case finding in ESSENCE-FL during the Zika response.