Syndromic surveillance using automated collection of computerized discharge diagnoses

The Syndromic Surveillance Information Collection (SSIC) system aims to facilitate early detection of bioterrorism attacks (with such agents as anthrax, brucellosis, plague, Q fever, tularemia, smallpox, viral encephalitides, hemorrhagic fever, botulism toxins, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, etc.) and early detection of naturally occurring disease outbreaks, including large foodborne disease outbreaks, emerging infections, and pandemic influenza. This is accomplished using automated data collection of visit-level discharge diagnoses from heterogeneous clinical information systems, integrating those data into a common XML (Extensible Markup Language) form, and monitoring the results to detect unusual patterns of illness in the population. The system, operational since January 2001, collects, integrates, and displays data from three emergency department and urgent care (ED/UC) departments and nine primary care clinics by automatically mining data from the information systems of those facilities. With continued development, this system will constitute the foundation of a population-based surveillance system that will facilitate targeted investigation of clinical syndromes under surveillance and allow early detection of unusual clusters of illness compatible with bioterrorism or disease outbreaks.