Using ESSENCE IV An Overview

Objectives Explain ESSENCE and its impact Define surveillance Define syndromic surveillance and its importance Demonstrate overview of training CD tool

What is ESSENCE? Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics, ESSENCE – Johns Hopkins UniversityESSENCE Offers excellent slicing and dicing capabilities for analysis Delivers valuable hospital view of data for infection preventionists (IP), others Hospital view allows collaboration with public health while protecting hospital/patient confidentiality

Seeks recognition and generates alerts for: –Conditions indicating unusual / unexpected health event may be imminent –Unusual or unexpected number of illnesses or syndromes within a period of time or geographic area –Illness or syndromes in an unusual population Surveillance

Purpose of Syndromic Surveillance Early Event Detection (primary) –Prevention measures before diagnosis of unusual cases Facilitates Outbreak Management (secondary) –Case investigation and management –Exposure contact tracing –Exposure source investigation and linking of cases and contacts to exposure sources

This system groups acquired data into sets of symptoms that define syndromes and sub- syndromes such as : –Respiratory Influenza-like illness –Gastrointestinal – Neurological Based on traditional sources: –Outpatient ICD-9 codes –Emergency room chief complaints Based on non-traditional sources: –School absenteeism –Over the counter (OTC) sales Syndromic Surveillance:

Syndromic surveillance via limited data set: HIPAA-compliant; gathered in software- neutral manner Limited data set Algorithms run on data automatically seeking anomalies Historical hospital data is baseline for analysis Users drill down to investigate

Using ESSENCE IV

Who are the Target Candidates? Support for multiple audiences: Epidemiologists Infection Preventionists Clinicians

Demonstration – CD Layout

Map Layer Selection Legend Active Layer Description

Scenario You are an Infection Preventionist: Baylor Medical Center at Southwest Fort Worth routine check of alerts in your hospital

You are an epidemiologist: Receive call from infection preventionist (IP) at HCA North Hills Hospital High patient count with diarrhea and fever Lab tests reveal shigella Lets investigate using ESSENCE Scenario

RESOURCES Description of APC Credits Disclaimer

ESSENCE provides the necessary tools…

Useful Websites and pages: –APC main page: –Tarrant County: –Texas APC (NACCHO): –Texas APC*: Helpful Resources * Use the NACCHO link to request copies of Texas APC products. Use the contact us page at to reach session presenters, who can also provide more complete product demos upon request.

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