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Visits with Nontyphoidal Salmonella Infections Reported to the BioSense System, 2006-2007

Description

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.

Submitted by elamb on