Public Health Surveillance Courses Hosted by the University of Alberta School of Public Health

The University of Alberta School of Public Health will be offering a series of Public Health Surveillance professional development courses in Edmonton, Alberta from May 30 - June 14, 2011.  Courses will range from two to five days.

The courses are designed for front-line public health staff and will have an applied focus.  They are ideal for practitioners, clinicians and policy developers working in health services, health systems, government and non-governmental organizations. 

The courses will cover the fundamentals of planning, implementing and evaluating surveillance systems for communicable and non-communicable diseases, injury, and risk factors.  They will also provide practical knowledge in the use of modeling, geographic information systems, and communication and dissemination. 

Faculty lecturers are from:

• Alberta Health and Wellness
• Alberta Health Services
• McMaster University
• US CDC and Prevention Public Health Agency of Canada
• University of Alberta, Faculty of Nursing, School of Public Health
• University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine

Additional details available on the course web page.  Or, for more information, please contact Ashley Orleski.

HIMSS Now Accepting Applications for the 2011 Davies Awards

HIMSS is now accepting applications for the 2011 HIMSS Davies Awards of Excellence.  The awards program honors hospitals and health systems, independent physician practices, public health and community health organizations that have successfully achieved value from EHRs to improve health care delivery.

Past awards for public health have gone to the Boston Public Health Commission (2009, for their use of their syndromic surveillance system, B-SYNSS), and NC-DETECT (2005, for their early even detection system). 

Information on the award process and numerous resources are available on the HIMSS Davies Award website.  Please contact David Collins, Director, Healthcare Information Systems, HIMSS, for more information.

ISDS Releases Final Recommendation for Meaningful Use

The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS), in close collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's BioSense Program, developed syndromic surveillance standards and guidelines that will be used by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to clarify the public health surveillance requirements of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Meaningful Use Programs. Development of the ISDS Final Recommendation brought together leaders in syndromic surveillance from throughout the public health community, and gathered input from all stakeholder groups, including eligible providers and hospitals, EHR technology vendors, and public health decision makers.

View the final recommendation: The Core Processes and EHR Requirements of Public Health Syndromic Surveillance.

Read more about the ISDS Meaningful Use Project >>

Syndromic Surveillance Seminar at the Boston University School of Public Health

Webinar on Environmental Data Measurement and its Application to Public Health

For its February webinar, the Research Committee has invited select colleagues from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) to outline some potential opportunities for collaboration between ISPRS and ISDS.

Webinar Info
Date:  Thursday, February 24th, 2011; 12:00-1:30 pm EST
The webinar will introduce the ISPRS Health Working Group and its upcoming Symposium on "Advancing Geospatial Technologies for Health," as well as its in-progress book entitled Environmental Tracking for Public Health Surveillance.  Two contributing authors/editors, Richard Kiang and Clara Witt, will present overviews on their chapters. 

Background
Under the ISPRS Remote Sensing Applications and Policies Technical Commission (Commission VIII), a new Health Working Group (WG VIII/2) has been formed to better understand how the applications of Earth observing technologies can contribute to knowledge of the natural environment's role in shaping environmental and infectious diseases.  The Working Group has several upcoming activities that may be of interest to ISDS members, which will be highlighted during the webinar:

1. Symposium on "Advances in Geospatial Technologies for Health," to be held on September 12th and 13th, 2011 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  
2. Upcoming book entitled Environmental Tracking for Public Health Surveillance, to be published by Taylor and Francis.  Featured ISDS members include Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MS and Elena Naumova, PhD. 

Presenters

• Amy Budge, Health Working Group Chair, Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico
• Stan Morain, Health Working Group Secretary, Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico
• Richard Kiang, Health Working Group Co-Chair,  NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Clara Witt, VMD, MPH, Captain, USPHS, and InterAgency Liaison, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center

Register Now!

Triple S Project: Syndromic Surveillance Survey and Assessment towards Guidelines for Europe

The International Society for Disease Surveillance is pleased to announce its role as an advisory member of the Triple-S Project in Europe.  Former Board Director Duncan Cooper will be serving as ISDS' liaison throughout the project, and will continue to provide updates as they become available. 

Below is the project's first press release:

Triple S (Syndromic Surveillance Survey and Assessment towards Guidelines for Europe) is a European project to develop guidelines to strengthen public health surveillance and rapid response to prevent and assess health threat impact has been announced. This work covers health threat or impact from both infectious and environmental hazards. The programme, co-financed by the European commission, involves twenty four organisations from fourteen countries. It aims to produce a handbook for member states to allow future early warning systems to be developed and assessed.

The Public Health Action Programme Triple S (Syndromic Surveillance Survey, Assessment towards Guidelines for Europe, grant agreement GA 2009.11.12) will review and analyse European syndromic surveillance systems. The program is co-financed by the European commission through the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers. It encompasses an inventory of existing and proposed syndromic surveillance systems, including country visits for an in-depth understanding of selected systems. The project will also provide scientific and technical guidance for the development and implementation of syndromic surveillance systems for both human and animal health, according to the needs and expectations of the member states. The aim of the Triple S project is to increase the European capacity for real-time or near-real time surveillance and monitoring of the health burden of expected and unexpected health related events.

The first meeting for this three-year project, coordinated by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS), was held in Luxembourg from November 22nd to 25th, 2010. The Health and Consumer Directorate General of the European Commission (DG Sanco), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the World Health Organization Europe (WHO/Europe) and the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) are members of the advisory board, to ensure good exchange of practices and expertise at both the European and the global level.

For further information please contact Duncan Cooper.

Public Health Informatics Distance Learning Course Offered by AMIA

The International Society for Disease Surveillance has received a message from our colleagues at AMIA regarding a distance learning opportunity:

"AMIA, the center of action for more than 4,000 informatics professionals and experts, is offering a 16-week, distance-learning, introductory course on Public Health Informatics (PHI), starting on January 28, 2011. The course is taught by Catherine Staes, BSN, MPH, PhD, University of Utah.  The course, for which up to 50 Continuing Education credits are available, aims to impart the following learning objectives:

• Fundamental informatics principles and their application to public health;
• Current and evolving public health surveillance systems and performing basic system analysis;
• Mission and practice of public health and identifying opportunities to advance public health using informatics methods and tools;
• Standards relevant to public health and creating design artifacts to enable system interoperability"
  

Please see the course website for further details on on learning objectives and course content.