A systems overview of the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-Based Epidemics (ESSENCE II)

Lombardo, Joseph S.; Burkom, Howard; Elbert, Eugene; Magruder, Steven F.; Lewis, Sheryl Happel; Loschen, Wayne; Sari, James; Sniegoski, Carol; Wojcik, Richard; Pavlin, Julie A.

doi:10.1007/pl00022313

Cited by 186 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…This and similar systems rely on hospital emergency room, private medical practice and veterinarian reports along with data on pharmacy prescriptions, school and work absences, nurses' notes and over-the-counter purchases to potentially provide early warning of unusual medical trends. 59 We're not there yet. Early results show promise, but experienced medical personnel thus far tend to prove quicker at detecting such anomalies or routine events such as the arrival of the flu season.…”

Section: Today Is Different Than Yesterday the Same Will Be True Tomo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The key to a megacity: Information

2023

Come Hell or High Fever: Readying the World's Megacities for Disaster

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The key to a megacity: InformationA recent addition to aggregating mobile, social, and location is Ushahidi, a platform that unifies data gathered from multiple sources (SMS, email, web) and distributes it onto a visual map or timeline. This technology was used to track the 'Snowmaggedon' storm in Washington D.C. last winter as well as tracking the progress of voting in India and the movement of swine flu across a map area. Most notably, this technology is being used for post-crisis information in Haiti. It is an open-source platform, which allows developers to see behind the technology and build additional features upon it. The site is rich in documentation to allow users to customize it for specific tasks. 1 -American Red Cross, The case for integrating crisis response with social media Rescue personnel will need to have information beyond what a two-dimensional grid coordinate can provide. Otherwise time will be lost in trying to determine where in a multi-story building individuals in need are located. 2

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Section: Today Is Different Than Yesterday the Same Will Be True Tomo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The key to a megacity: Information

2023

Come Hell or High Fever: Readying the World's Megacities for Disaster

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“…VHA's first electronic public health surveillance system was the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE), adopted in 2004-2005 and developed by Johns Hopkins University [12,13]. ESSENCE utilizes a point-and-click user interface allowing queries to be made against its data feed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public health surveillance in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: evaluation of the Praedico surveillance system

et al. 2022

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Background Early threat detection and situational awareness are vital to achieving a comprehensive and accurate view of health-related events for federal, state, and local health agencies. Key to this are public health and syndromic surveillance systems that can analyze large data sets to discover patterns, trends, and correlations of public health significance. In 2020, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) evaluated its public health surveillance system and identified areas for improvement. Methods Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guidelines for Evaluating Public Health Surveillance Systems, we assessed the ability of the Praedico Surveillance System to perform public health surveillance for a variety of health issues and evaluated its performance compared to an enterprise data solution (VA Corporate Data Warehouse), legacy surveillance system (VA ESSENCE) and a national, collaborative syndromic surveillance platform (CDC NSSP BioSense). Results Review of system attributes found that the system was simple, flexible, and stable. Representativeness, timeliness, sensitivity, and Predictive Value Positive were acceptable but could be further improved. Data quality issues and acceptability present challenges that potentially affect the overall usefulness of the system. Conclusions Praedico is a customizable surveillance and data analytics platform built on big data technologies. Functionality is straightforward, with rapid query generation and runtimes. Data can be graphed, mapped, analyzed, and shared with key decision makers and stakeholders. Evaluation findings suggest that future development and system enhancements should focus on addressing Praedico data quality issues and improving user acceptability. Because Praedico is designed to handle big data queries and work with data from a variety of sources, it could be enlisted as a tool for interdepartmental and interagency collaboration and public health data sharing. We suggest that future system evaluations include measurements of value and effectiveness along with additional organizations and functional assessments.

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“…John Hopkins University outlined a blueprint for SARI surveillance in the United States (Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-Based Epidemics). 13 This combines numerous data sets, including a validated set of ICD-9 patient diagnosis codes (predecessor to ICD-10), to achieve daily outbreak surveillance at both community and hospital levels. 14 , 15 In Australia, ICD-10 code–based surveillance for influenza was explored, using data from two sentinel hospitals, both before and during a pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%