Prehospital EMS data is rarely mentioned in discus-sions surrounding syndromic surveillance for covert bio-terrorism attacks or for the monitoring of syn-dromic illness such as bird flu. However, EMS dis-patch data may serve as the very first marker in such an event. EMS dispatch data has many useful advan-tages in syndromic surveillance. These include the ability to monitor across wide areas of geography and a single data collection source. Additionally, EMS dispatchers are a medically trained core group of in-dividuals that use a single standardized set of interro-gation questions and methods with specific dispatch codes regarding patient conditions. This data would arguably be a more reliable source of data than mul-tiple different inputs from multiple individuals at various clinics and hospitals emergency departments. EMS data is also able to look at a much broader group of individuals both by volume of calls and by geography, since they are instantaneously able to capture the location of the callers when dialing 911. EMS dispatch is also able to monitor patient move-ment to different accepting facilities.
Objective
This paper describes how the surveillance of actual EMS real time events occurring during normal operations were analyzed using a syndromic surveillance system and how these events can be used as surrogate markers for how a bio-surveillance system would act if an actual covert or overt terrorist event or pandemic illness were to occur