Hello deane-ga,
WOW! There is a lot of activity in the area of health incident
notification systems. In conducting the research I discovered that
there are many nation/world-wide initiatives for establishing systems
that can quickly alert public health authorities to security and
pandemic threats. There are many companies involved developing new
technologies that will conform to newly established reporting
standards.
It took me some false starts before I found the right keywords and
search terms to get you what you need. Please refer to my search
strategies below. Once I found the right terminology I discovered
quite a lot of resources. As requested, I?ve grouped the products I
identified in the first section of my report. It seems that there is a
lot of activity with implementing GIS elements in these notification
systems. I also note that there is a lot of open source activity in
this field.
Although you said you didn?t need details, I?ve also included some
policy-related general resources because much of the activity in the
development of these products is driven by policy mandates.
I trust that the information I?ve provided will help you with your
project. Please don?t hesitate to ask for clarification if any of this
is confusing.
All the best.
~ czh ~
==============================================
PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE / DETECTION SYSTEMS
==============================================
http://www.virtualalert.com/BTRS.htm
Bioterrorism Readiness SuiteTM (BTRS)
BTRS is the leading communication and collaboration platform for
public health and emergency preparedness and response. BTRS meets and
exceeds Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Health Alert Network (HAN)
and Public Health Information Network (PHIN) requirements for
directory, alerting, and security.
------------------------
http://www.virtualalert.com/news.htm
Global Secure Corp Acquires Virtual Alert, Inc.
Monday, March 7, 2005
Global Secure Corp. (?Global Secure?), a homeland security company
providing integrated products and services for critical incident
responders around the world, today announces the acquisition of
Virtual Alert, Inc., a provider of critical information systems that
enable state, local and federal governments to prepare, track and
respond to public health emergencies.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.globalsecurecorp.com/index.asp
Global Secure
Global Secure is focused on securing the homeland with integrated
products and services for the critical incident response community
worldwide. Global Secure is made up of three business units; Systems,
Training and Safety, each working to provide a comprehensive solution
to our customers incorporating information and communications
technologies, training and exercise programs as well as advanced
respirators and self-contained breathing systems.
------------------------
http://www.globalsecurecorp.com/systems/
http://www.globalsecurecorp.com/systems/products.htm
Global Secure Systems (formerly Virtual Alert, Inc.) provides
emergency planning, response and recovery solutions. Our expertise in
information and communication technology and services is currently
deployed in states with a combined population of more than 100 million
people. Our products offer true role-based, multi-media alerting and
rich document management capabilities for crisis preparedness and
response, monitoring and managing volunteers, and hospital capacity
management. We also offer the training and exercises required for an
effective response.
------------------------
http://www.globalsecurecorp.com/systems/partners.htm
Global Secure Systems has teamed with Microsoft® Corporation to
maximize Microsoft's enterprise server suite, including its
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/
What Is Epi Info??
Download Latest Version: Epi Info? Version 3.3.2
Release Date: February 9, 2005
With Epi Info? and a personal computer, epidemiologists and other
public health and medical professionals can rapidly develop a
questionnaire or form, customize the data entry process, and enter and
analyze data. Epidemiologic statistics, tables, graphs, and maps are
produced with simple commands such as READ, FREQ, LIST, TABLES, GRAPH,
and MAP. Epi Map displays geographic maps with data from Epi Info?.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/netss.htm
National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance
What Is NETSS?
The National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance
(NETSS) is a computerized public health surveillance information
system that provides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) with weekly data regarding cases of nationally notifiable
diseases.
How does CDC receive reports of notifiable diseases?
Through NETSS, CDC receives reports of notifiable diseases from the 50
state health departments, New York City, the District of Columbia, and
five U.S. Territories. These reports are initiated when health-care
providers suspect or diagnose a case of disease that is notifiable in
their state. They are to report the case by mail, telephone, or
facsimile, to the local, county, or state health department. Clinical
laboratories also report results consistent with reportable diseases.
When a case of disease is reported at the local level, staff members
in the local or county health department implement control measures as
needed and forward the report to the state health department.
Must I be located in a state health department to use NETSS?
Only designated staff in state and territorial health departments or
in the New York City or District of Columbia health departments can
transmit data to CDC through NETSS. In some states, city and county
staff enter data that will ultimately be transmitted to CDC, but the
weekly transmission of all reported data is overseen by the
appropriate state or territorial health department staff.
What computer software must I use to transmit data?
NETSS does not require the use of a specific computer software
program. However, data must be transmitted in ASCII (American Standard
Code for Information Interchange) format, which allows the NETSS
system to integrate data from surveillance systems throughout the
United States
-------------------------------------------------
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/main.html#What%20is%20WONDER
General Help for CDC WONDER
CDC WONDER: Information and Communication
Welcome to CDC WONDER -- Wide-ranging OnLine Data for Epidemiologic
Research -- an easy-to-use, menu-driven system that makes the
information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the
public at large. It provides access to a wide array of public health
information.
CDC WONDER furthers CDC's mission of health promotion and disease
prevention by speeding and simplifying access to public health
information for state and local health departments, the Public Health
Service, and the academic public health community. CDC WONDER is
valuable in public health research, decision making, priority setting,
program evaluation, and resource allocation.
CDC WONDER, developed by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), is an integrated information and communication
system for public health.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR239.pdf
CDC Focus Area B: Public Health Surveillance and Detection Activities
Real-Time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance System (RODS) ? University
of Pittsburg Medical Center.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12807803&dopt=Citation
Technical description of RODS: a real-time public health surveillance system.
This report describes the design and implementation of the Real-time
Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) system, a computer-based
public health surveillance system for early detection of disease
outbreaks. Hospitals send RODS data from clinical encounters over
virtual private networks and leased lines using the Health Level 7
(HL7) message protocol. The data are sent in real time. RODS
automatically classifies the registration chief complaint from the
visit into one of seven syndrome categories using Bayesian
classifiers. It stores the data in a relational database, aggregates
the data for analysis using data warehousing techniques, applies
univariate and multivariate statistical detection algorithms to the
data, and alerts users of when the algorithms identify anomalous
patterns in the syndrome counts. RODS also has a Web-based user
interface that supports temporal and spatial analyses. RODS processes
sales of over-the-counter health care products in a similar manner but
receives such data in batch mode on a daily basis. RODS was used
during the 2002 Winter Olympics and currently operates in two
states-Pennsylvania and Utah. It has been and continues to be a
resource for implementing, evaluating, and applying new methods of
public health surveillance.
-------------------------------------------------
http://openrods.sourceforge.net/
The RODS Open Source Project
Open Source Outbreak and Disease Surveillance Software
The Project
Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) is open-source
public health surveillance software. RODS collects and analyzes
disease surveillance data in real time and has been in development
since 1999 by the RODS Laboratory--a collaboration of the University
of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. In 2002, the Utah
Department of Health used the software for monitoring during the
Winter Olympics Games. At present, health departments and other groups
in the United States, Canada and Taiwan use the software.
The open-source phase of the project began in August, 2003, when the
University of Pittsburgh released the source code under the GNU GPL.
At the same time, the RODS Laboratory created this web site to
distribute the source code and to encourage developers, consultants,
academics, and companies to participate in the creation of the most
innovative outbreak and disease surveillance software in existence.
-------------------------------------------------
http://health.utah.gov/nedss/
UTAH's National Electronic Disease Surveillance System
Office of Epidemiology - Systems Development Program
The National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), is a
federal-state cooperative project to improve public health
surveillance (PHS). The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) in
partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
started development of an implementation of the NEDSS architecture in
Utah in 2000.
The overall long-range objective of this project is to sequentially
replace and integrate existing stand-alone public health surveillance
systems with a modern system (the NEDSS system) that simplifies public
health surveillance processes, and adds additional functionality
nonexistent within the current systems.
------------------------
http://health.utah.gov/nedss/architecture.htm
UT NEDSS ARCHITECTURE
The architectural scope includes island topography for hardware and
software with a redundant system located at another location. The
topography will support any of several possible deployment
alternatives
-------------------------------------------------
http://ibis.health.utah.gov/home/site_map.html
http://ibis.health.utah.gov/home/welcome.html
IBIS-PH: Utah's Public Health Data Resource
IBIS-PH provides information on the health status of Utahns, the state
of the health care system, and Utah public health activities. You can
access published reports, indicator profiles, and query health data
directly. For more detailed information about the data that is
available on this site, go to the "contents and usage" page.
------------------------
http://ibis.health.utah.gov/home/acknowledgments.html
http://health.utah.gov/ibisq/BasicIBIS.ppt
IBIS-PH Acknowledgments
ACTION2000
HI-IQ
MatCHIIM
IBIS-PH
The IBIS-PH system has evolved over the past decade. The following
chronology acknowledges all the major developments and the generous
help we've had along the way.
The IBIS-PH indicator web reports employ state-of-the-art graphing
software called AgileBlox Chart, developed by ElanSoft Infotech, Ltd.
(http://www.elansoft.com). Our selection of the AgileBlox Chart
software was based on strict criteria, including cost, appearance,
compatability with current web standards (XML, SVG), and charting
features, such as confidence intervals and mouse-over capabilities.
Elansoft developers have been very responsive to our needs, and have
provided important value to the final product.
------------------------
http://ibis.health.utah.gov/home/adopt_ibis.html
Adopt the IBIS-PH System
The IBIS-PH system was developed to meet recognized public health
assessment needs, including tabulation of vital statistics data,
tracking of progress on Healthy People 2010 goals, and the displaying
of data for local communities. It has been designed using
currently-accepted modern system architectures for complex software
systems (loosely-coupled components and data-driven processes) and is
based on open standards using free open source packages and tools
where applicable. These elements provide a system that is easier to
build, easier to maintain, easier to extend, more flexible, and has
better longevity when compared with systems built without these
characteristics. IBIS-PH has strong potential for generalizability to
other states and localities.
If you would like to adopt the IBIS-PH system or if you have any
questions about the system please email the IBIS-PH director.
For a brief overview of the IBIS system, see this Basic IBIS Overview
PowerPoint presentation.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Search&db=PubMed&term=public+health+surveillance+systems&tool=QuerySuggestion
Performing your original search, public health surveillance systems,
in PubMed will retrieve 1717 citations.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.syndromic.org/link1.html
Syndromic Surveillance Conference
Vendors
There are many vendors who have developed products and services for
syndromic surveillance. The links to vendors below are not an
endorsement from the NYC DOHMH or CDC of these vendors, but rather a
directory of vendors who have requested that their information be
shared. No attempt has been made to screen these vendors or their
products.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.satscan.org/
The SaTScan? software has been developed to analyze spatial, temporal
and space-time count data using the spatial, temporal, or space-time
scan statistics. It is a free software program designed for any of the
following interrelated purposes:
-- To evaluate reported spatial or space-time disease clusters, to
see if they are statistically significant.
-- To test whether a disease is randomly distributed over space, over
time or over space and time.
-- To perform geographical surveillance of disease, to detect areas
of significantly high or low rates.
-- To perform repeated time-periodic disease surveillance for the
early detection of disease outbreaks.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.emergisoft.com/productinfo/syndromic_surveillance/
Emergisoft's EmergiVision.?
Leading the Charge in Syndromic Surveillance.
Despite what you may have read, Syndromic Surveillance is not a new
data review process brought on by bio-terrorism. Rather, it is
practice of clinicians and health agencies that, due to new
technologies, is being significantly enhanced through emergency
department information systems that hospitals across the United States
are now implementing. These Emergency Department Information Systems
designed by Emergisoft allow for "automated syndromic surveillance"
reporting to health departments. For the hospital, this once daunting
task is now seamless with EmergisoftED.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.firstwatch.net/
FirstWatch-- Stout Solutions, LLC,
http://www.firstwatch.net/syndromic_english.html
FirstWatch Syndromic Surveillance
FirstWatch provides real-time awareness of emerging threats by
monitoring 9-1-1, law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services
data from computer aided dispatch (CAD) and ProQA advanced telephone
triage, as well as poison control center data. Several of our
customers are currently expanding the data they monitor to include
hospital ED records, nurse-call triage information, hospital diversion
data, and field data (PCR).
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.esri.com/
ESRI
------------------------
Client List
ESRI software is used by more than 300,000 organizations worldwide
including most U.S. federal agencies and national mapping agencies, 45
of the top 50 petroleum companies, all 50 U.S. state health
departments, most forestry companies, and many others in dozens of
industries.
http://www.esri.com/industries/health/index.html
GIS for Health and Human Services
------------------------
http://www.esri.com/products.html
ArcGIS?an integrated collection of GIS software products for building
a complete GIS for your organization. The ArcGIS framework enables you
to deploy GIS functionality and business logic wherever it is
needed?in desktops, servers (including the Web), or mobile information
systems.
This architecture, coupled with the geodatabase, gives you the tools
to assemble intelligent geographic information systems.
------------------------
http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0102/comhealth1of2.html
Building a Community Health Surveillance System
Editor's note: A community health surveillance system (CHSS) is a
network that constantly gathers, integrates, and analyzes data on
indicators, occurrences, and transmissions of disease; monitors the
capabilities of the health system; and spatially relates all this
information using GIS. This proactive approach deals more effectively
with health threats, particularly those caused by the use of
bioweapons.
What Is CHSS?
A health surveillance system continually measures the level of health
protection as well as the occurrence of disease in a population. It
requires a lower threshold for action than disease surveillance. By
the time someone is admitted to an acute care hospital with a
communicable disease, that person may have been symptomatic for days
or weeks and may have already been seen by health care professionals
repeatedly.
For CHSS to succeed, public health officials at the local, state, and
federal levels must provide leadership. This leadership includes
setting clearly articulated standards for technology, data access and
use, and the training necessary to create and maintain the system.
Public health agencies must promote participation agreements that
implement clinical information exchanges and secure anonymity for
patients.
Data Standards and Agreements
Technical standards for the transmission, replication, and
dissemination of data, including metadata, must be adopted. Data
should be collected uniformly and include specifications for update
frequency and allowed dissemination for purposes other than for which
it was originally collected. Without clear standards, data is suspect
and unreliable.
Currently, most community data sharing is situational, not systematic,
which limits the data available. Adopting data sharing agreements make
a CHSS work effectively. For data sharing to work, databases must be
created and maintained in conformance with metadata, data security,
and access-and-use standards.
Private Secured Geography Networks
A geography network, built on geoservers, is capable of analyzing
geographic queries and distributing information with geographic
relevance. A private secured geography network (PSGN) is simply a
collection of geoservers connected in a secured fashion. A single
department within a large public health agency can have its own PSGN
and directly control information content and access by internal and
external entities.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.pangaeatech.com/biosurv.htm
Pangaea Information Technologies, Ltd.
A Geospatial Information Technology Company
Pangaea's ibex Biosurveillance is a real-time monitoring solution
developed to pinpoint, identify, and analyze potential threats to
public health before they become crises.
ibex Biosurveillance performs real-time 24/7 monitoring of hospital
emergency departments, checking for indications of a potential threat
to public health. When the system detects a statistically significant
indicator, an alert is issued to designated hospital staff and public
health administrators. The alert describes the situation
distinguishing it from normal occurrences, and provides access to a
secure intranet location where officials can view data for the
patients involved. The system provides an interactive live map of
patient origins useful in determining the source and extent of a
disease outbreak or other public health related threat. Real-time
charting and statistical displays help to characterize the exact
nature of the threat. The system can also be used to conduct hospital
initiated inquiries regarding patient origins and general demographic
and complaint related investigations.
-------------------------------------------------
http://icpa.net/
ICPA, Inc. is dedicated to the development of quality Healthcare
Software that collect and analyze data with the goal of
reducing/preventing hospital-acquired infections, improving employee
health, and monitoring the health of the community.
------------------------
http://icpa.net/aice-millennium.html
AICE
The premier AICE software product line has been helping Infection
Control and Quality Improvement departments monitor and analyze
healthcare-associated (nosocomial) infections since 1985. This
industry-leading software is also used to investigate outbreaks,
analyze patient risk factors, and benchmark data.
------------------------
http://icpa.net/redbat-features.html
RedBat
Multi-use syndromic surveillance system for hospitals and public
health agencies. Besides its comprehensive system for outbreak
detection, both naturally occurring and terrorist-related, it includes
capabilities for tracking injuries, reportable diseases, asthma, and
disaster victims. No manual data entry is required-RedBat
automatically imports existing data.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.stchome.com/prod_surveillance.html
Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC)
Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC) is an international public
health solutions firm with nearly two decades of experience. Services
include design, development, and implementation of public health
information systems from event based early warning, disease reporting
and outbreak management to population-based registries and chronic
disease patient management. Staff consists of public health
specialists and health information technology experts supporting the
public health mission at the local, regional, state, national and
international level from preparedness to evaluation. Whether it is a
planning pandemic flu exercise or implementing a disease reporting and
contact tracing system, STC serves as public health's partner to
ensure success and value.
------------------------
http://www.stchome.com/disease_reporting_system.htm
Disease Reporting System
STC offers a web-based disease reporting system with successful
real-world deployment history. The system is based upon the CDC NEDSS
Logical Data Module (LDM) and can be used to report diseases to both
federal and local agencies. The application is designed to be an
integral component of a statewide disease, bioterrorism, and emergency
preparedness system.
The ability to combine laboratory reports with the disease report is
made possible by utilizing a state-of ?the-art duplicated
identification process. GIS technology is embedded in the program,
allowing geocoding specific to individual client needs.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.aegistg.com
The AEgis Technologies Group
------------------------
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/5/22
A software tool for creating simulated outbreaks to benchmark surveillance systems
http://www.chip.org/research/resources.htm
AEGIS Cluster Creation Tool (AEGIS -CCT)
Evaluation of surveillance systems for the early detection of
outbreaks is particularly challenging when the systems are designed to
detect events for which there are a paucity of or no historical
examples.? One approach to benchmarking outbreak detection performance
is to create semi-synthetic datasets containing authentic background
noise and injected artificial signal.? We have created a software
tool, the AEGIS Cluster Creation Tool (AEGIS-CCT), which enables users
to create simulated clusters with controlled feature sets, varying the
desired cluster radius, density, distance and relative location from
the hospital. AEGIS-CCT does not require the use of an external
geographical information system program for cluster creation. The
cluster creation tool is an open source program, implemented in JAVA
and is freely available under the Lesser GNU Public License at the
Sourceforge website.
Software Download : SourceForge.Net Cluster Generator Site
============================================================
PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE / DETECTION POLICIES AND PROGRAMS
============================================================
http://www.ahrq.gov/news/ulp/btbriefs/btbrief5.htm
Bioterrorism and Health System Preparedness, Issue Brief No. 5
The Role of Information Technology and Surveillance Systems in
Bioterrorism Readiness
Introduction
In a time of increasing concern over bioterrorist activity, early
response to disease outbreaks is a key public health priority and an
emerging field of research. Early knowledge of a disease outbreak can
improve response time and health outcomes. Recent public health
emergencies such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
outbreak and the outbreak of monkeypox in the Midwestern United States
in the summer of 2003 highlight the important role that early
detection plays in mobilizing rapid response.
While traditional disease surveillance relies on often time-consuming
laboratory diagnosis, a new breed of syndromic surveillance systems
has the potential to significantly speed up detection of disease
outbreaks. These new, computer-based surveillance systems offer
valuable and timely information to hospitals as well as to State,
local, and Federal health officials.
This Issue Brief describes syndromic monitoring systems and how they
are used to track trends within patient populations and to establish
early warning of disease outbreaks, including potential bioterrorist
activity.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB9042/RB9042.pdf
http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB9042/
Syndromic Surveillance: An Effective Tool for Detecting Bioterrorism?
Key findings:
-- Syndromic surveillance systems face inherent trade-offs (among
sensitivity, timeliness, and the number of false positives) that limit
their effectiveness.
-- The benefits of any syndromic surveillance system will depend on
how effectively it is integrated into the public health system.
-- Until the benefits of syndromic surveillance are more clearly
established, cities and states should proceed cautiously before
investing in costly systems.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/syndromic.htm
Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics
Syndromic Surveillance: an Applied Approach to Outbreak Detection
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5305a1.htm
Framework for Evaluating Public Health Surveillance Systems for Early
Detection of Outbreaks
Framework
This framework is intended to support the evaluation of all public
health surveillance systems for the timely detection of outbreaks. The
framework is organized into four categories: system description,
outbreak detection, experience, and conclusions and recommendations. A
comprehensive evaluation will address all four categories.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/phin/
Public Health Information Network (PHIN)
The Public Health Information Network (PHIN) is CDC?s vision for
advancing fully capable and interoperable information systems in the
many organizations that participate in public health. PHIN is a
national initiative to implement a multi-organizational business and
technical architecture for public health information systems.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/phin/software-solutions/index.html
PHIN: Software and Solutions
PHIN includes a portfolio of software and solutions to assist in
building and maintaining interconnected information systems throughout
public health. PHIN Preparedness defines a series of functional
systems areas and processes by which these systems are being
implemented nationally to achieve a consistent and interoperable
preparedness system infrastructure. Existing state, local and federal
investment in information technology for these functional systems
areas is leveraged, but is also guided with specific requirements,
standards, specifications and certification. For those agencies who do
not currently have systems, or those who need a ?bridging? system, the
CDC has developed software and solutions to assist in meeting specific
requirements, standards, specifications and certification needs.
The table below consists of each of the PHIN Preparedness functional
areas with the associated CDC developed software solution(s). State
and local partners can use these applications as their final solutions
or as bridge solutions until their own systems meet the certification
requirements and specifications.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470092483,descCd-tableOfContents.html
Spatial and Syndromic Surveillance for Public Health
Andrew B. Lawson (Editor), Ken Kleinman (Editor)
ISBN: 0-470-09248-3
Hardcover, 284 pages
May 2005
US $99.95
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Health Incident Notification Systems
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Syndromic surveillance public health
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