The Oregon Health Authority (OHA), in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, implemented a syndromic surveillance system, Oregon ESSENCE. A critical component to developing and growing this statewide system is obtaining buy-in and voluntary participation from hospital Emergency Departments (EDs). This process involves approval at multiple levels within a hospital facility from administration to information technology staff responsible for sending electronic ED data to the Oregon ESSENCE system. Therefore, developing marketing materials that appeal to a wide range of recruitment audiences is a key step in obtaining stakeholder buy-in. OHA adopted the ISDS and CDC syndromic surveillance standards for the public health objective of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Meaningful Use Programs. However, Oregon hospitals will not receive financial incentive to participate in Oregon ESSENCE from CMS until 2014 during stage two of Meaningful Use. Consequently, this project's early years will focus on obtaining voluntary participation from hospitals.
Objective
Encourage hospitals to participate in OHA emergency department syndromic surveillance system, Oregon ESSENCE.