Automated Hospital Emergency Department Data (AHEDD) System

The Automated Hospital Emergency Department Data System is designed to detect early indicators of bioterrorism events and naturally occurring public health threats. Four investigatory tools have been developed with drill-down detail reporting: 1. Syndromic Alerting, 2. Chief Complaint Data Mining, 3. ICD9 Code Disease, and 4. Influenza-Like-Illness Tracking.

All analysis processing runs on the server in seconds using ORACLE PL/SQL stored procedures and arrays.

Objective

This paper details the development of electronic surveillance tools by Communicable Disease Surveillance, which have increased detection and investigation capabilities.

The Automated Hospital Emergency Department Data (AHEDD) System was designed to detect early indicators of bioterrorism and naturally occurring health risks. Initial development includes real-time data collection from four pilot hospitals, an automated syndromic surveillance application, and the capability of raw data analysis for further investigation and follow-up. This automated system frees hospital and State staff from manual reporting and analysis; and has a broad application for Public Health, collecting both chief complaint and diagnosis codes. As the project expands we plan to add the remaining 22 acute care hospitals; include poisoning, asthma, and injury surveillance; and assess electronic disease reporting from diagnosis codes and data linkage with other public health data stores, such as Environmental Health Tracking, and pre-hospital data.

Objective

This paper describes the use of technology to create an automated, real-time surveillance system with the capacity for early detection and alerting of potential health threats, and the capability to facilitate prompt investigation and increased efficiency for both New Hampshire hospital and the Division of Public Health Service resources.