Syndromic Surveillance Using Minimum Transfer of Identifiable Data: the Example of the National Bioterrorism Syndromic Surveillance Demonstration Program

Authors: Platt, R.¹; Bocchino, C.¹; Caldwell, B.¹; Harmon, R.¹; Kleinman, K.¹; Lazarus, R.¹; Nelson, A.F.¹; Nordin, J.D.¹; Ritzwoller, D.P.¹

Source: Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Volume 80, Supplement 1, June 2003 , pp. i25-i31(1)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Several health plans and other organizations are collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a syndromic surveillance system with national coverage that includes more than 20 million people. A principal design feature of this system is reliance on daily reporting of counts of individuals with syndromes of interest in specified geographic regions rather than reporting of individual encounter-level information. On request from public health agencies, health plans and telephone triage services provide additional information regarding individuals who are part of apparent clusters of illness. This reporting framework has several advantages, including less sharing of protected health information, less risk that confidential information will be distributed inappropriately, the prospect of better public acceptance, greater acceptance by health plans, and less effort and cost for both health plans and public health agencies. If successful, this system will allow any organization with appropriate data to contribute vital information to public health syndromic surveillance systems while preserving individuals' privacy to the greatest extent possible.

Keywords: Acute disease epidemiology; Ambulatory care; Bioterrorism; Cluster analysis; Disease outbreaks; Human; Medical informatics applications; Medical records systems; Population surveillance methods; Statistics and numerical data; Surveillance

Document Type: Original article

Affiliations: 1: Drs. Platt and Kleinman are with the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Massachusetts; Drs. Platt and Lazarus are with Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Ms. Bocchino is with the American Association of Health Plans, Washington, DC; Dr. Harmon is with Optum, Golden Valley, Minnesota; Dr. Caldwell is from Savannah, Georgia; Dr. Lazarus is from the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Australia; Mr. Nelson and Dr. Nordin are with HealthPartners Research Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Dr. Ritzwoller is with Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver.

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