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Web-Based Spatio-Temporal Display of NC DETECT Surveillance Data

Description

NC DETECT is the Web-based early event detection and timely public health surveillance system in the North Carolina Public Health Information Network. The reporting system also provides broader public health surveillance reports for emergency department visits related to hurricanes, injuries, asthma,  vaccine-preventable diseases, environmental health and others. NC DETECT receives data on at least a daily basis from four data sources: emergency departments, the statewide poison center, the statewide EMS data collection system, a regional wildlife center and laboratory data from the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. Data from select urgent care centers are in pilot testing.

 

Objective

Managers of the NC DETECT surveillance system wanted to augment standard tabular Web-based access with a Web-based spatial-temporal interface to allow users to see spatial and temporal characteristics of the surveillance data. Users need to see spatial and temporal patterns in the data to help make decisions about events that require further investigation. The innovative solution using Adobe Flash and Web services to integrate the mapping component with the backend database will be described in this paper.

Submitted by elamb on