BACKGROUND Despite the growing popularity of syndromic surveillance, little is known about if or how these systems are accepted, utilized and valued by end users. This study seeks to describe the use of syndromic surveillance systems in Ontario and users' perceptions of the value of these systems within the context of other surveillance systems. METHODS Ontario's 36 public health units, the p...

Syndromic surveillance is the regular collection, analysis, and interpretation of real-time and near-real-time indicators of diseases and other outbreaks by public health organizations. Motivated by the threat of bioterrorism, syndromic surveillance systems are being developed and implemented around the world. In a 2004 systematic review of publicly available information, 115 surveillance syste...

Syndromic Surveillance has been performed using machine learning and other statistical methods to detect disease outbreaks. These methods are largely dependent on the availability of historical data to train the machine learning-based surveillance system. However, relevant training data may differ from region to region due to geographical and seasonal trends, meaning that the syndromic surveill...

Introduction In a 2007 survey of public health officials in the United States, International Society for Disease Surveillance found that only 7% used pharmacy prescription sales data for surveillance (1). There have been many reports suggesting effective use of prescription sales data in syndromic surveillance (2, 3, 4, 5). Community pharmacies can provide a valuable supplementary tool for synd...

Introduction Syndromic surveillance system, which collects non-specific syndromes in the early stages of disease development, has great advantages in promoting early detection of epidemics and reducing the burden of disease confirmation (1). It is especially effective for surveillance in resource-poor settings, where laboratory confirmation is not possible or practical (2). Integrating syndromi...

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective To document the current evidence base for the use of electronic health record (EHR) data for syndromic surveillance using emergency department, urgent care clinic, hospital inpatient, and ambulatory clinical care data. Introduction Historically, syndromic surveillance has primarily involved the use of near real-...

Introduction Syndromic surveillance is the real-time collection and interpretation of data to allow the early identification of public health threats and their impact, enabling public health action.1 Statistical methods are used in syndromic surveillance to identify when the activity of indicator ‘signals’ have significantly increased. A wide range of techniques have been applied to syndromic d...

Introduction The Syndromic Surveillance Consortium of Southeast Texas (SSCSeT) consists of 13 stakeholders who represent 19 counties or jurisdictions in the Texas Gulf Coast region and receives health data from over 100 providers. The Houston Health Department (HHD) maintains and operates the syndromic surveillance system for the Gulf Coast region since 2007. In preparation for Meaningful Use (...