Displaying results 1 - 7 of 7
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Building an automated Bayesian case detection system
Content Type: Abstract
Current practices of automated case detection fall into the extremes of diagnostic accuracy and timeliness. In regards to diagnostic accuracy, electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) is at one extreme and syndromic surveillance is at… read more… immediate, and ELR is delayed 7 days from initial patient visit. A plausible solution, a middle way, to the extremes … mediate, and ELR is delayed 7 days from initial patient visit.1 A plausible solution, a middle way, to the extremes … Figure 1 shows chart of percent daily expected ED flu visits from July to December of 2009. Average daily ED … -
Challenges in adapting an natural language processing system for real-time surveillance
Content Type: Abstract
We are developing a Bayesian surveillance system for realtime surveillance and characterization of outbreaks that incorporates a variety of data elements, including free-text clinical reports. An existing natural language processing (… read more… University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: wendy.w.chapman@gmail.com Objective Adapt an existing natural language … -
Monitoring Pharmacy Retail Data for Anomalous Space-Time Clusters
Content Type: Abstract
Bio-surveillance systems monitor multiple data streams (over-the-counter (OTC) sales, Emergency Department visits, etc.) to detect both natural disease outbreaks (e.g. influenza) and bio-terrorist attacks (e.g. anthrax re-lease). Many detection… read more… (over-the-counter (OTC) sales, Emergency Department visits, etc.) to detect both natural disease outbreaks (e.g. … multiple data streams (OTC sales, Emergency Department visits, etc.) to detect both natural disease outbreaks (e.g. … the system involved sending alert reports to users via e-mail. To improve users’ ability to evaluate outbreaks, alert … -
An automated influenza-like-illness reporting system using freetext emergency department reports
Content Type: Abstract
Current methods for influenza surveillance include laboratory confirmed case reporting, sentinel physician reporting of Influenza-Like-Illness (ILI) and chief-complaint monitoring from emergency departments (EDs). The current… read more… Allegheny County Health Department, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: tsui2@pitt.edu Objective This paper describes an … a 6-month time series graph of the percentage of total ED visits per day with ILI detected by the rule-based logic. … of the UPMC Health System. The average number of daily ED visits with ED reports between July and Dec. 2009 was 569. … -
Estimating the incidence of influenza cases that present to emergency departments
Content Type: Abstract
Our laboratory previously established the value of over-the-counter (OTC) sales data for the early detection of disease outbreaks. We found that thermometer sales (TS) increased significantly and early during influenza (flu) season.… read more… University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: ricardov@pitt.edu Objective We developed a model that … the following formula, which assumes that TS and ED visits are proportional to population size (pop) and that … of predicting outcomes that are related to flu ED visits based on TS. Our results suggest that the use of TS, … -
EpiScape: a map generation service for spatial temporal visualization
Content Type: Abstract
The Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format has become a recognized standard for the distribution of geographic information system data. In most recent versions of the Real-Time and Outbreak Disease Surveillance (RODS) system, we… read more… University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: juest4@pitt.edu Objective This paper describes … -
Data quality in federated disease surveillance: using variability as an indicator of quality
Content Type: Abstract
Most, if not all, disease surveillance systems are federated in the sense that hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies are the source of most surveillance data. Although a health department may request or mandate that these… read more… University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: nau2@pitt.edu Objective We developed a novel method …