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ISDS Conference

In the U.S., federal programs are accelerating the meaningful use of electronic health record (EHR) technology and encouraging greater standardization in how governmental public health agencies (PHAs) establish surveillance data partnerships with healthcare providers. To qualify for the benefits of these federal programs (a.k.a., Meaningful Use), healthcare professionals and hospitals must determine: 1) Whether their jurisdictional PHA collects health data for immunization or cancer registries, reportable diseases, and/or syndromic surveillance; and 2) If the PHA does collect this data, then they must register for data on-boarding with the PHA and actively work with them to establish on-going data exchange. These requirements are predicated on participating state and local PHAs either establishing new or expanding the capacity of their existing public health data reporting services. To assist state and local PHAs in this effort, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) facilitates a national task force, known as the Stage 2 MU Public Health Reporting Requirements Task Force, which has recommended guidelines and clarified requirements for these new processes.

Objective

To exchange lessons learned and refine national guidelines for public health agencies to declare Meaningful Use readiness, register eligible professionals and hospitals for the public health meaningful use objectives, on-board data providers, and perform "on-going" data submission.

Submitted by elamb on

Public health surveillance continues to broaden in scope and intensity. Public health professionals responsible for conducting such surveillance must keep pace with evolving methodologies, models, business rules, policies, roles, and procedures. The third annual Syndromic Surveillance Conference was held in Boston, Massachusetts, during November 3-4, 2004. The conference was attended by 440 persons representing the public health, academic, and private-sector communities from 10 countries and provided a forum for scientific discourse and interaction regarding multiple aspects of public health surveillance. The conference was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, CDC, Tufts Health Care Institute, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and organized by a Scientific Program Planning Committee; members of the committee are listed at http://www.syndromic.org/syndromicconference/2004/course_book/TAB_2.pdf.

During the conference, 134 presentations were given, including 18 at plenary sessions, 60 oral presentations, and 56 poster presentations. The entire list of presentations is available at http://www.syndromic.org/syndromicconference/2004/course_book/TAB_1.pdf.

After the conference, an editorial committee was formed, consisting of members of the planning committee. The board conducted a peer-review process to select abstracts and manuscripts for publication. A total of 36 abstracts and 45 manuscripts were submitted. Each submission was evaluated, scored according to preset criteria by at least two reviewers, and discussed by members of the committee. Time and resource limitations precluded inclusion of all submissions for publication. The manuscripts and abstracts contained in this supplement represent a sampling of the relevant topics and perspectives for this complex subject area. The manuscripts are categorized into five content areas: 1) overview, policy, and systems; 2) data sources; 3) analytic methods; 4) simulation and other evaluation approaches; and 5) practice and experience.

During the conference, a session was held to discuss the possible formation of a professional society to advance the field of disease surveillance. This nonprofit entity will be incorporated to advance the science of surveillance. Identified proposed functions include serving as the institutional home of the annual conference, maintaining and expanding a website, and coordinating work groups to advance specific scientific projects. Interest in this new society reflects the importance of this field and the requirement for communication in operational surveillance. A more formalized social basis for focus in the field and adaptive business rules might permit 1) increased integration among the needed scientific cultures and disciplines; 2) maturation of approaches to surveillance methods, technology, standards, and evaluation; 3) increased interaction and more productive partnerships between the respective public health level roles; and 4) outreach to integrate perspectives and operational realities for public health that include not only infectious disease and biologic terrorism preparedness and response but also counterterrorism and national security concerns. Finally, such a society might provide a forum for consolidation of a much-needed professional peer group and network for surveillance system operators and data monitors. More discussion of this topic will take place at the 2005 Syndromic Surveillance Conference, which will be held in Seattle, Washington, during September 13--15, 2005.

The program committee, editorial committee, and the editorial staff of MMWR all deserve recognition for their work in organizing the conference and preparing these proceedings. Special thanks are given to Haobo Ma, MD, MS, BioSense Program, National Center for Public Health Informatics, CDC, who coordinated the preparation of these reports. 

--- Henry R. Rolka, Chair, Editorial Committee

Chief Scientist/Statistician 

National Center for Public Health Informatics, CDC

Submitted by elamb on

Currently Scotland has a number of influenza surveillance schemes, including âflu-spotter’ practices, and enhanced surveillance general practices that submit clinical samples for virological testing (SERVIS practices). This information feeds annually into the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme1. Information from the systems is seasonal, and limited geographically covering 6% and 3% of the population respectively. The utilisation by Scottish community physicians (general practitioners, GP’s) of the same administration system in over 80% of settings - the General Practice Administration System for Scotland (GPASS) - offers an alternative approach to influenza surveillance with some additional benefits.

Objective

To develop and pilot an enhanced primary care surveillance system of influenza-like illness in Scotland, record influenza vaccine uptake and estimate vaccine effectiveness in season in real time.

 

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

Biosurveillance systems typically receive free- text chief complaint and coded diagnosis data, however this data has limited specificity for notifiable disease surveillance. The Biosense System receives chief complaint and/or diagnosis data from over 360 hospitals and laboratory results from 24 hospitals in 7 states using the Public Health Information Network Messaging System (PHINMS) and HL7 standards. BioSense also receives final diagnosis from Veterans’ Affairs and Department of Defense outpatient clinics, but these clinics do not currently report laboratory findings. Chief complaints and diagnoses are assigned, as appropriate, to 11 syndromes (e.g., Gastrointestinal [GI]) (1) and to 78 more granular categories termed sub-syndromes (e.g., abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea) Surveillance for Salmonella infection is important since this agent is both a commonly- reported notifiable disease and a Category B bioterrorist agent.

Objective

To describe visits reported from BioSense hospitals with non-typhoidal Salmonella infections.

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Submitted by elamb on

The objective of this report is to describe the variation of symptoms being detected as respiratory or influenza-like illness (ILI) syndrome using nurse advice call center (NACC) data and emergency department (ED) chief complaint data compared to laboratory data from one hospital.

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Submitted by elamb on

To compare NHS24 data with a range of laboratory and other surveillance systems to further explore its potential utility in communicable disease management.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on
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