Query purpose:
To assist state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal public health practitioners in monitoring emergency department (ED) visits for suspected nonfatal overdoses involving any drug using syndromic surveillance data.
Definition description:
Query purpose:
To assist state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal public health practitioners in monitoring emergency department (ED) visits for suspected opioid overdoses.
Query purpose:
To assist state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal public health practitioners in monitoring emergency department (ED) visits for suspected overdoses of any drug.
Why the syndrome was created:
The purpose of CDC Medication Refill v1 is to monitor visits for any medication/prescription that a patient may have run out of. Anything repetitive that needs routine refill visits - dialysis, oxygen, heart, BP, cholesterol.
Medication adherence studies typically use pharmacy-dispensing data to infer drug exposures. These studies often require calculations reflecting the intensity and duration of drug exposure. The typical approach to estimating duration of drug exposure is to use dispensing dates and day supply. Often, pharmacy databases have random and/or systematic errors causing improbable calculations. These errors become particularly problematic when estimating medication duration in drugs with complicated dosing schedules. Experts recommending cleaning data or removing erroneous data before analysis, but do not provide instructional guidelines. We developed an algorithmic approach to improve estimation of drug-course duration, dosing and medication possession ratios (MPRs). This study compares estimated MPRs produced by the standard method with MPRs by the algorithmic approach. Methotrexate was chosen as the first drug to implement the algorithm because of its widespread use for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and for its complexity in dosing schedules.
Microorganisms resistant to antibiotics (ABX) increase the mortality, morbidity and costs of infections. In the absence of a drug development pipeline that can keep pace with the emerging resistancemechanisms, these organisms are expected to threaten public health for years to come. Because exposure to ABX promotes the development of bacterial resistance, health care providers have long been urged to avoid using antibiotics to treat conditions that they are unlikely to improve, including many uncomplicated acute respiratory infections. We asked if interposing clinical decision support software at the time of electronic order entry could adjust ABX utilization toward consensus guidelines for these conditions.
In disease surveillance, an outbreak is often present in more than one data type. If each data type is analyzed separately rather than combined, the statistical power to detect an outbreak may suffer because no single data source captures all the individuals in the outbreak. Researchers, thus, started to take multivariate approaches to syndromic surveillance. The data sources often analyzed include emergency department data, categorized by chief complaint; over-thecounter pharmaceutical sales data collected by the National Retail Data Monitor (NRDM), and some other syndromic data.
Objective
This study proposes a simulation model to generate the daily counts of over-the-counter medication sales, such as thermometer sales from all ZIP code areas in a study region that include the areas without retail stores based on the daily sales collected from the ZIP codes with retail stores through the NRDM. This simulation allows us to apply NRDM data in addition to other data sources in a multivariate analysis in order to rapidly detect outbreaks.
The electronic surveillance system for the early notification of community-based epidemics (ESSENCE) is the web-based syndromic surveillance system utilized by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH). ESSENCE utilizes a secure, automated process for the transfer of data to the ESSENCE system that is consistent with federal standards for electronic disease surveillance. Data sources in the Maryland ESSENCE system include ED chief complaints, poison control center calls, over-the-counter (OTC) medication sales, and pharmaceutical transaction data (specifically for anti-bacterial and anti-viral medications). All data sources have statewide coverage and are captured daily in near real-time fashion.
Objective
To examine the trends in prescription antiviral medication transactions and emergency department (ED) visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) and the relationship between these trends.
Of the 13 million people in Malawi1 85% are rural and the country has high burden of under-five morbidity and mortality due to preventable infectious diseases. Respiratory, febrile and diarrhea diseases are the top 3 morbidity and mortality illnesses in most developing countries2. Acute medical care has greatly improved these conditions, but widespread and uncontrolled use of antibiotics threatens to reverse gains achieved so far. Drug sensitivity tests are a prerequisite to guide prescription practices.
Objective
Assessment of routine use of drug sensitivity test results to guide treatment choices in district hospitals in Malawi.
The New York State (NYS) Medicaid Program provides healthcare for 34% of the population in New York City (NYC) and 4%-20% in each of the 57 county populations up-state. Prescription data are collected through the sub-mission of claims forms to the Medicaid Program and transmitted daily to the NYS Syndromic Surveillance Program as summary counts by drug category and patient’s ZIP Code, age category, and sex. One of the 18 drug categories is influenza agents, which in-cludes rimantadine, oseltamivir, and zanamivir.
For surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI) activity, the NYS and NYC Sentinel Physician Influenza Surveillance Program collects from sentinel physicians weekly reports of the total number of patients seen and the number of patients presenting with ILI (defined as temperature > 100 degrees F, presence of cough or sore throat, and absence of other known cause of these symptoms). Not all counties in NYS have sentinel physicians: in the 2003-2004 flu surveillance season (Week 40, in early October, 2003, to Week 20, in late May, 2004), 37 of 57 upstate counties and all 5 counties of NYC had sentinel physicians.
Objective
To evaluate the usefulness of daily counts of prescriptions for influenza agents charged to Medicaid insurance, by county of residence of the recipient, for detection of elevated ILI in NYS, currently monitored through physicians participating in the CDC Influenza Surveillance Program.