2012 ISDS Conference Highlight: 2012 ISDS Conference Abstracts

With whom will you collaborate next?

Peer-reviewed Abstracts are an important product of the ISDS Annual Conferences. Not only do they make up a large portion of the body of work on best practices and innovations in disease surveillance, the 2012Conference Abstracts (pdf) also highlight this year’s conference theme ‘Expanding Collaborations to Chart a New Course in Public Health Surveillance.’

Figure 1. The largest connected component of the
2012 ISDS Abstract author network. The circles
represent authors, with the color indicating primary
author affiliation. Lines are drawn between co-authors.

Looking at authorship of the 2012 accepted abstracts, there are a large number of inter-department and inter-agency collaborations (Figure 1), but there is room for expansion. This can be visualized by comparing the largest connected component of an authorship network visualization (Figure 1) versus the entire network (Figure 2). Each circle in the figures represents an author and the colors represent the author’s first affiliation. The lines connect co-authors. As you can see, there are many smaller groupings and groupings with homogeneous colors in Figure 2.

The ISDS Annual Conference has commonly been cited as the place where unique collaborative projects originate, and this may be due to the variety of stakeholder groups in attendance. The ISDS Conference draws professionals from a broad range of disciplines— epidemiology and computer science to mathematical modeling and health policy.

So, view the 2012Conference Abstracts (pdf) and come to San Diego, CA, prepared to discover your next collaboration!

Figure 2. Full 2012 ISDS Abstract author network. The circles represent authors, with the color indicating primary author affiliation. Lines are drawn between co-authors.

To find out more about the 2012 ISDS Conference, please visit: http://www.syndromic.org/annual-conference/2012.

Written by: Tera Reynolds, MPH, Program Manager, ISDS

Nominations by Nov 30: New CDC Advisory Committee

The CDC is looking for nominees for a new committee, the National Public Health Surveillance Biosurveillance Advisory Committee (NPHSB AC). ISDS would like to share the following message with more information about this committee and how to submit nominations. We encourage the ISDS community to self-nominate or nominate others for this unique opportunity to play a role in influencing the pressing public health surveillance and biosurveillance issues of today. 

-----Start Message-----

Dear  Partners:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is forming a new committee, the National Public Health Surveillance and Biosurveillance Advisory Committee (NPHSB AC) with the recent release of a Federal Register Notice (FRN) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-10-03/html/2012-24423.htm.   As the Program Office charged with supporting the formation and work of the NPHSB AC, we are seeking your recommendations for members to serve on the NPHSB AC. 

Your perspective on public health surveillance and biosurveillance is important to CDC and would greatly enhance the work of the NPHSB AC.  The overall scope of the NPHSB AC is reflected in the FRN notice.  The primary focus of the NPHSB AC will address:

• How to take advantage of the expanding automation of health information
• How to better coordinate CDC’s multiple surveillance activities and their interface with state and local partners for both routine and urgent situations

It is desired that members of the NPHSB AC be recognized experts in one or more of the six Priority Areas outlined in the National Biosurveillance Strategy for Human Health http://intranet.cdc.gov/osels/phspo/bc/bc_pdf/NBSHH.pdf

which are:

• Electronic Health Information Exchange
• Electronic laboratory Information Exchange
• Unstructured Data
• Integrated Biosurveillance Information 
• Global Diseases Detection and Collaboration
• Biosurveillance Workforce of the Future

The FRN calling for member nominations was released on November 6th.  You can view and print this FRN at the following link: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-11-06/pdf/2012-27053.pdf.  Please follow the directions in the FRN and also take the additional step of validating the interest of your nominee(s) in serving prior to submitting their CV for consideration. Nominee submissions are due by November 30, 2012.  

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

Pamela Diaz, MD

Designated Federal Official, NPHSB AC

Deputy Director (Acting), Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office

ISDS Releases Meaningful Use Recommendations

The International Society for Disease Surveillance is pleased to present "Electronic Syndromic Surveillance Using Hospital Inpatient and Ambulatory Clinical Care Electronic Health Record Data: Recommendations from the ISDS Meaningful Use Workgroup" (Recommendations). The ISDS Meaningful Use (MUse) Workgroup's Recommendations provide clarity for Stage 2 Meaningful Use, when on-going syndromic surveillance reporting will be required for eligible hospitals. These Recommendations provide a basis for planning and establishing data use relationships between Public Health Agencies and eligible providers while also building upon prior ISDS work by incorporating both lessons learned and broader stakeholder participation.

The Recommendations were developed in an open, iterative, and consensus-driven manner overseen by a multi-stakeholder workgroup of experts in public health, clinical care, medical informatics, and health information technology. Stakeholder feedback was gathered at the initial stages of development as well after Draft Guidelines and Revised Guidelines were released. In the end, 7 organizations and approximately 100 individuals participated in the development process. 

ISDS is grateful to the MUse Workgroup and HLN Consulting, LLC for their shared expertise, talents, and time over the one-year period that the Recommendations were developed. ISDS also thanks the subject matter experts, stakeholders, readers, and ISDS Board of Directors who provided thoughtful help and consideration during this process. Finally, thank you to the Division of Informatics Solutions and Operations, OSELS, CDC for making this work possible. ISDS is grateful for the on-going partnership and support of the CDC in convening the surveillance stakeholder community for expert, consensus recommendations about syndromic surveillance for Meaningful Use. 

Please visit the ISDS website for more information about the Recommendations and their development process.