Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS), a syndromic surveillance system created by the University of Pittsburgh has been used in Ohio by the state and local health departments since late 2003. There are currently 133 health care facilities providing 88% coverage of emergency department visits statewide to the RODS system managed by Health Monitoring Systems Inc. (HMS). The system automatically alerts health department jurisdictions when various syndromic thresholds are exceeded.
As part of response protocols, investigators export a case listing in a comma-separated values file which typically includes thousands of lines with each row containing: date admitted, age, gender, zip code, hospital name, visit number, chief complaint, and syndrome. The HMS-RODS web site provides basic graphs and maps, yet lacks the flexibility afforded by ad hoc queries, cross tabulation, and portability enabling off-line analysis.
Objective
This paper describes the integration of open source applications as portable, customizable tools for epidemiologists to provide rapid analysis, visualization, and reporting during surveillance investigations.