*NEW* ONC Training Course on Interoperability & Public Health

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) recently announced a new 6-part training course on Interoperability and Public Health. 

The course contains lessons on the following topics:

• Introduction to Interoperability and Public Health
• Ongoing Submission to Public Health Agencies
• Submission of Electronic Data to Immunization Registries
• Submission of Syndromic Surveillance Data to Public Health Agencies
• Submission of Electronic Lab Results to Public Health Agencies
• Submission of Electronic Cancer to Public Health Agencies

For more information visit the course website.

ISDS Works to Improve Inter-Jurisdictional Data Sharing

Sharing public health data and practices among public health authorities enhances local and regional situational awareness and epidemiological capacities. Although technology is a critical medium for data sharing, positive working relationships and trust must come first.

To promote inter-jurisdictional syndromic surveillance data sharing and facilitate skill development among practitioners, a *Regional Data Sharing Workshop* was developed and piloted by ISDS. A non-formal education approach, which stresses self-directed learning and peer-to-peer problem solving, was used to design and plan Workshop activities. The effect of the Workshop on data sharing and participant skills was assessed using quantitative and qualitative methods.

Thirteen surveillance professionals from seven state and local public health agencies, mainly from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) Region 5, planned and participated in the 2-day Workshop. The participants selected data sharing for heat-related illness surveillance using BioSense 2.0 as a use case to focus Workshop activities and discussions.

Assessment findings indicated that Workshop participation increased syndromic surveillance data sharing among Region 5 jurisdictions and, furthermore, built new knowledge and skills that advanced surveillance competencies and performance. Survey data showed that 13 new data sharing partnerships are underway or planned as a result of the Workshop. Comparisons of participant responses on a syndromic surveillance skills inventory before and after workshop participation indicated positive gains in skills for:

• Data processing;
• Data analysis and interpretation;
• Communicating syndromic surveillance information;
• Data quality assurance; and
• Establishing data sharing partnerships.

The Regional Data Sharing Workshop is an effective and efficient means for promoting syndromic surveillance data sharing and skill development. With the opportunity to collaborate and discuss data sharing in-person for a specific, regionally relevant purpose, participants strengthened inter-jurisdictional relationships, leading to more data sharing and improved skills that benefit syndromic surveillance work. These results present a strong case for repeating similar workshops in other HHS regions in order to build regional data sharing and to improve public health practice nationwide.

Call for Nominations: Rick Heffernan Award for Public Health Practice

Nomination Deadline: September 16, 2013

The Award
The Award Committee is soliciting nominations for the Rick Heffernan Award for "sustained and outstanding contributions to the knowledge and practice of biosurveillance." This annual award was established to honor Rick Heffernan, an early leader in the field of biosurveillance, and founding member and constant supporter of ISDS, who passed away in February 2013.

Rick was committed to his career as a dedicated public servant in the field of epidemiology. He was a strong, gentle, and exemplary leader who will be remembered as a trusted friend, a deeply valued colleague, and one who was always calm in a crisis. He graduated in 1992 from Columbia University, School of Public Health/School of International Affairs in New York, NY with a Master of Public Health and a Master of International Affairs. From 1992 to 1996 he worked for the New York City Department of Health, first as a Public Health Epidemiologist conducting HIV research and then as Assistant Director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases. He set up the first Health Alert system to enable the NYC Department of Health to provide timely information to city healthcare providers on breaking public health emergencies. From 1996 to 2001 he was a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, completing all coursework and conducting research on drug resistant infections. During this time he spent a year studying the Ebola virus antibody in northeastern Gabon. In the wake of 9/11, Rick rejoined the NYC Department of Health and was critical to the Department's response to the World Trade Center and anthrax letter terrorist attacks. One of his major accomplishments was establishing one of the first electronic emergency department syndromic surveillance systems in the country. He also led the effort to develop the Communicable Disease Surveillance System, improving the city's capacity to track over 70 infectious diseases. After moving to Madison, WI in 2007 with his family, he continued his work helping to detect, prevent and manage threats to public health, taking the position of Chief Research Scientist Supervisor for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, Communicable Disease Epidemiology Section. He was an author of numerous scientific journal articles, a board member of the International Society of Disease Surveillance, taught workshops on syndromic surveillance for the annual ISDS conference, and gave numerous presentations in his field of expertise. Since 2007 he served as Associate Faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health, and previously served as Adjunct Lecturer for graduate-level courses at Yale University, Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases and at City University of New York, Hunter School of Health Sciences. Rick was also a talented musician and athlete. He was profoundly loved by many, who will miss his warmth and gentleness, his delightful sense of humor, and his big smile.

The award for 2013 will be presented at the ISDS Conference in New Orleans, December 11-13th, 2013.

Nominations
Any current or former ISDS member may be nominated by a colleague (no self-nominations please). Nominations should be prepared containing the following:

1. A cover letter from the primary nominator up to one page in length, that describes the major contributions of the nominee to the practice of biosurveillance and her/his impact on the field.
2. A brief curriculum vitae or biographical sketch of the nominee (up to three pages).
3. Optional: Up to two letters, of a maximum of two pages in length each, supporting the nomination, from others familiar with the contributions of the nominee. The support letters should describe in specific terms how the nominee has made sustained and outstanding contributions to the knowledge and practice of biosurveillance.

Nominations should be submitted through this online form. The deadline for submitting nominations for the 2013 Rick Heffernan Award is September 16, 2013.

If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail syndromic@syndromic.org.

Learn more about the 2013 ISDS Conference.

2013 ISDS Conference Keynote Speakers

ISDS and its 2013 Scientific Program Committee are pleased to announce two world-renown speakers for the 2013 ISDS Conference keynote addresses!

Opening Keynote

David Abramson, PhD, MPH, Deputy Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness; Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at CUMC

As Deputy Director and Director of Research at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Dr. Abramson's areas of study include disaster recovery and resiliency, the social ecology of vulnerability, risk communication targeted at high-risk or elusive communities, and survey research on preparedness attitudes and behaviors. He is the principal investigator of the longitudinal Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study, an examination of need and recovery among 1,000+ randomly sampled displaced and impacted families in Louisiana and Mississippi (2006-2010), and is Co-Investigator of an NIH study of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on children's health. Additionally, Dr. Abramson is leading a foundation-funded effort to identify pediatric need along the Gulf Coast. Other current or recent disaster-related research activities include studies of how US cities recover from disasters, evolving trends in disaster philanthropy, the public health response to Hurricane Irene, and a FEMA-funded "community tabletop" that focused on how well school systems can prepare for disasters. From 2007 – 2010, Dr. Abramson served as an Associate Editor of the AMA peer-reviewed journal, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

Prior to entering the field of public health in 1990, Dr. Abramson worked for a decade as a national magazine journalist, having written for Rolling Stone, Esquire, Outside, and the San Francisco Examiner, among other publications. A former paramedic, Abramson holds a doctorate in sociomedical sciences with a specialization in political science, and a master of public health degree, both from Columbia University.

Closing Keynote

Gary Slutkin, MD, Founder/Executive Director, Cure Violence; Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health

Dr. Gary Slutkin is a physician, epidemiologist, infectious disease control specialist and Founder/ Executive Director of Cure Violence. Recognized as an innovator in violence prevention, Dr. Slutkin sees the issue of violence as fundamentally misdiagnosed and has presented his solution-oriented understanding to the World Bank, the State Department, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine, MIT SaxeLab, Harvard Law School and the National Intelligence Council.

Learn more about the 2013 ISDS Conference here.

CDC Awards Funding to Support Public Health Surveillance, Disease Detection and Outbreak Response

On Tuesday, August 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced an award to states of about $75.8 million through the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement (ELC). This funding helps states and communities strengthen core epidemiology and laboratory capacity needed to track and respond quickly to a variety of infectious diseases.

Through the ELC mechanism, CDC provides funding to all 50 state health departments, six local health departments, and eight territories or U.S. affiliates. Funds provided through the ELC mechanism help pay for more than 1,000 full- and part-time public health employees including epidemiologists, laboratorians, and health information systems staff. The annual ELC investment provides public health officials with improved tools to respond to more outbreaks, conduct surveillance faster and prevent more illnesses and deaths from infectious diseases.

The funding provided through the ELC cooperative agreement supports surveillance, detection, and outbreak response efforts in many infectious disease areas, including zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, foodborne diseases, influenza, and healthcare-associated infections. Beth P. Bell, M.D., M.P.H., director of CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, stated the significance of this funding in strengthening national infectious disease infrastructure, “With many infectious diseases first identified at the local level, this funding ensures that state health departments are able to effectively prevent, detect and respond to such public health threats.”

This investment by the CDC directly addresses a key recommendation from ISDS’s recently published Sustainable Surveillance paper by giving recognition to public health surveillance as a core public health function. As stated by Scott Becker, MS, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), even though this year’s allocation is a 4% drop from last year, the small cut in light of sequestration shows how highly we value public health surveillance in the country.

This funding is in addition to $13.7 million that went out through the ELC mechanism in January. More details on state-by-state ELC funding and on CDC’s ELC cooperative agreement are available on the ELC webpage at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dpei/epidemiology-laboratory-capacity.html. 

*The above information was adapted from the Press Release by CDC and from CIDRAP News.

Help us improve the ISDS Community Forum!

The ISDS Community Forum is a great place to connect with colleagues around the world, exchange ideas, collaborate, and ask questions; but we think it can be even better.

Next time you visit the Forum look for the front-page survey asking about your experience. This extremely short survey will help us gauge your interest and use of the Forum and make it more worthwhile, useful, and intuitive.

We're already working to implement some changes including a new layout and a more open member format. If you're interested in joining the Forum you can send a request to Becky Zwickl at bzwickl@syndromic.org. We hope to see you there!

Public Health - EHR Vendors Collaboration Initiative

**Update: Pre-registration is NOW REQUIRED. See details below.**

Dear Public Health Colleagues:

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), in collaboration with Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has launched a Public Health (PH)–Electronic Health Records (EHR) Vendors Collaboration Initiative. The proposed participants in this initiative will include Public Health Practitioners and EHR Vendors from across the nation. The initial focus of this initiative will be on meeting Stage 1 and 2 Meaningful Use (MU) objectives for public health.

Initially, separate virtual meetings were held with public health and an EHR vendor workgroup to help frame and plan this initiative.  Based on inputs gathered from these interactions, joint meetings of the public health practitioners and EHR vendors from across the nation will be held on a recurrent basis starting on August 20^th, 2013, to work collaboratively towards achieving the desired goals and creating value for the public health and EHR vendor communities.

If you have suggestions for topics or issues to be addressed by this initiative, please send those to meaningfuluse@cdc.gov with a Subject Line of “Suggestion for PH-EHR Vendor Initiative” by COB August 16^th.   The suggestions received will help identify common issues and areas of focus for this initiative.

WebEx information Date and Time:

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 3:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 2:00 pm, Central Daylight Time (Chicago, GMT-05:00)

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 12:00 pm, Mountain Time (Arizona, GMT-07:00)

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 12:00 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco, GMT-07:00)

Event number: 646 100 152

Event password: open&88

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To register for the online event
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1. Go to https://ahrqhit.webex.com/ahrqhit/onstage/g.php?d=646100152&t=a&EA=cuhrig%40rti.org&ET=cafa7b000967412beb9e5f9793f0a58e&ETR=2deb918cb86a8626ce8ae6715b9ed2aa&RT=MiMxMQ==&p
2. Click "Register".
3. On the registration form, enter your information and then click "Submit".

Once the host approves your registration, you will receive a confirmation email message with instructions on how to join the event.

Agenda

• Introduction – Jim Daniel
• Overview, Scope, Goals, and Status – Jim Daniel
• New Public Health Processes in Meaningful Use Stage 2 – Denise Webb
• Open Discussion - All
• Next Steps – All