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Preparedness

Description

Epidemiologists and public health professionals work to ensure the risk and impact of existing and emerging diseases are minimized and do not turn into a pandemic. Timely and accurate information has become imperative as the world has become more interconnected through travel and technology. Recently, new information systems have played a key role in improving public health’s early warning and case management for disease outbreaks. Improved analytics to predict risk in populations have helped researchers open new doors to disease cures and medicines. The role of technology and public health to support these efforts has become more valuable. Health information systems are traditionally used for electronic medical records or payer billing systems and are not paired with technology advancements. Efforts today to link information and technology to engage consumers are championed by health plans and healthcare providers. Empowering individuals to be proactive when presented with their medical records is not a simple problem to solve. Information must be actionable but it still may not achieve the desired success. What if the health community engaged consumers with a social mission to help them fight disease outbreaks by becoming frontline activists to report occurrences and outcomes, and become intelligent connections to extend the right information to their social networks? This would encourage consumer technology to be better integrated with health information technology with continued investment in sustaining critical public health ecosystems. A large part of health information systems are immunization information systems (IIS) where administered vaccines are documented in a confidential computer based system in a specific geographic area1. The IIS can be used for disease surveillance purposes and provide valuable information to public health authorities2. Recently, MyIR was created where any IIS, pharmacy or provider can provide patients direct access to family immunization records. Providers can communicate to patients using MyIR to increase engagement and send vaccine reminders.

Objective: If public health agencies used direct communication channels to individuals by building on existing immunization networks, the public would receive correct information quicker during a pandemic. Furthermore, there is value that can be leveraged from social networks to advance public health efforts to manage disease events and encourage consumers being more proactive in managing their own health care.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

In 2004, the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD), which serves a county population over 890,000, began using a real time syndromic surveillance system, ESSENCE (Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics) to assist in detecting possible disease outbreaks. Today, about 1600 emergency department visits occur daily in Marion County's 14 emergency departments. Epidemiologists from MCPHD have contributed to the city's Extreme Temperature plans for the last few years. While most of the previous increases in heat related illnesses in Marion County have been attributed to prolonged heat exposure in connection with local auto races, the county had not activated the county wide emergency response plan in several years. From Tuesday, July 19 through Friday, July 22, 2011 the Marion County Extreme Temperature plan was put into action in response to several days of a high heat index.

Objective

To evaluate the usefulness of utilizing real time hospital emergency department chief complaint data to estimate counts of patients presenting at emergency departments with heat related illness during the July 2011 Heat Wave in Indianapolis.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

The purpose of the National Collaborative for Bio-preparedness (NCB-P) is to enhance biosurveillance and situational awareness to better inform decision-making using a statewide approach. EMS represents a unique potential data source because it intersects with patients at the point of insult or injury, thus providing information on the timing and location of care. North Carolina uses a standardized EMS data collection system, the Prehospital Medical Information System (PreMIS), to collect information on EMS encounters across the state using the National EMS Information System (NEMSIS) template. Since NEMSIS is planned to be incorporated by EMS agencies in every state, an EMS-based approach to biosurveillance is extensible nationally.

Objective

To develop a statewide biosurveillance system based on emergency medical services (EMS) information which employs both symptom-based illness categorization and spatiotemporal analysis.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

In emergencies, public health agencies must be able to respond to health threats that can affect entire communities. Agency leaders need to achieve situational awareness through the development of flexible, timely, and accurate electronic biosurveillance systems. Drawing on various sources, the North Carolina Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (NCPERRC) and Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) developed recommendations for state and local public health agencies to build or enhance their biosurveillance capabilities.

Objective

To review and summarize best practices of thought leaders and implementers of biosurveillance systems with an emphasis on event-related situational awareness.

Submitted by knowledge_repo… on

Mass gatherings—defined as events attended by a sufficient number of people to strain the planning and response resources of the host state—pose unique surveillance challenges. Attendees can be at greater (or high) risk for injuries due to event activities or volume of people in an unstructured setting. Surveillance can help detect early signs of outbreaks associated with crowding and compromised sanitation.

Submitted by elamb on

Wisconsin experienced severe flooding from August 17 to September 20, 2018. This flood caused an estimated $232 million in damage and affected 21 counties. Floods can have negative health impacts on a population, such as increased skin infections, communicable diseases, gastroenteritis, and zoonotic infections.1 They can also have negative impacts on health infrastructure and cause displacement.1 

Submitted by Anonymous on
Description

In Rwanda, communicable diseases are the mostly predominant representing 90% of all reported medical consultations in health centers. The country has often faced epidemics including emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. To enhance its preparedness to identify and respond to outbreaks and prevent epidemics, the Government of Rwanda has developed and deployed an electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (eIDSR) working with Voxiva with funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC).

Objective:

(1) To describe the implementation of the electronic system for integrated disease surveillance in Rwanda.

(2) To present the sensitivity and specificity of the electronic reporting system to detect potential outbreaks

 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Influenza is a significant public health problems in the US leading to over one million hospitalizations in the elderly population (age 65 and over) annually. While influenza preparedness is an important public health issue, previous research has not provided comprehensive analysis of season-by-season timing and geographic shift of influenza in the elderly population. These findings fail to document the intricacies of each unique influenza season, which would benefit influenza preparedness and intervention. The annual harmonic regression model fits each season of disease incidence characterized by its own unique curve. Using this model, characteristics of the seasonal curve for each state and each season can be compared. We hypothesize that travelling waves of influenza in the 48 contiguous states differ dramatically in each influenza season.

 

Objective

In surveillance it is imperative that we know when and where a disease first begins. The objective of this study was to examine trends in traveling waves of influenza in the US elderly population. Preparedness for influenza is an important yet difficult public health goal due to variability in annual strains, timing, and shift of the influenza virus. In order to better prepare for influenza epidemics, it is important to assess seasonal variation across individual influenza seasons on a state-by-state basis. This approach will lead to effective interventions especially for susceptible populations such as the elderly.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

States and localities are using biosurveillance for a variety purposes including event detection, situational awareness, and response. However, little is known about the impact of biosurveillance on the operational components and functioning of the public health system and the added value of biosurveillance to traditional surveillance methods. A deeper understanding of how state and local public health systems use biosurveillance data and the factors that facilitate and impede its utility are needed to inform efforts to improve public health surveillance.

 

Objectives

A goal of the case studies was to assess the impact of biosurveillance on public health system preparedness, detection and response for a range of public health threats.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

In response to increasing reports of avian influenza being identified throughout the eastern hemisphere, the U.S. Homeland Security Council, the Infectious Disease Society of America, and others have called for expansion of enhanced, real-time electronic syndromic and other advanced surveillance systems to supplement the traditional surveillance systems recommended in U.S. Department of Health & Human Services pandemic influenza preparedness plan guidance. Like many states, the Connecticut Department of Public Health, has updated its own Pandemic Influenza Response Plan to reflect its expanding arsenal of surveillance systems. These systems include a syndromic surveillance system, known as the Hospital Admissions Surveillance System (HASS), developed in September 2001 to monitor for possible bioterrorism events and emerging infections. HASS data has been utilized to supplement information received from laboratoryconfirmed influenza test results, influenza-like-illness reporting, and pneumonia influenza mortality to track seasonal influenza since 2003.

 

Objective

This paper summarizes the results of a continued review of state pandemic influenza preparedness plans and compares various approaches for routine influenza surveillance during interpandemic periods with approaches for enhanced surveillance during pandemic alerts. The increased reliance of syndromic and other advanced surveillance systems by U.S. states for seasonal influenza tracking and pandemic preparedness planning is documented.

Submitted by elamb on