The use of syndromic surveillance systems to assist with the timely detection of unusual health events first occurred prior to the events of September 11, 2001. In the State of Michigan a pilot project with emergency departments began collecting syndromic data in 2004. Little research has been done in rural settings which have unique characteristics such as having one medical facility for a large geographic region. In addition to being rural, the community in which the following study was done is a resort com-munity where the population differs between the summer and winter months in number and composi-tion. Another unique factor in this study is that there is little published literature utilizing triage and dis-charge syndromic groups as a means for determining system sensitivity and specificity.
Objective
This paper describes the analysis of sensitivity and specificity of an ICD-9 based syndromic surveillance system in a rural emergency department located in Northern Lower Michigan.