Syndromic Surveillance

Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance System (EDSSS)
 
Public Health disease surveillance is the ‘systematic ongoing collection, collation, and analysis of data, and the timely dissemination of information to those who need to know it in order for action to be taken’. 
 
In recent years, syndromic surveillance has become an increasingly important tool for disease surveillance. Syndromic surveillance is the collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of health-related data, typically on a real-time (or near real-time) basis, to enable the early identification of the impact (or absence of impact) of potential human or veterinary public health threats which require effective public health action.
 
The EDSSS is a joint project between CEM and the Health Protection Agency. The data that Emergency Departments routinely collect are anonymised and sent securely to a data warehouse where they are analysed to produce reports. No extra burden is placed on clinicians.
 
Hospitals engaged in this project also have the opportunity to view their own data in real time. See the latest summary reports from the system here:

PHE Syndromic Surveillance Summart - Week 16 - 2013

PHE Syndromic Surveillance Summary - Week 15 - 2013

PHE Syndromic Surveillance Summary - Week 14 - 2013

HPA Syndromic Surveillance Summary - Week 13 - 2013

HPA Syndromic Surveillance Summary - Week 12 - 2013

HPA Syndromic Surveillance Summary - Week 11 - 2013

We are interested to hear from departments that wish to participate in the scheme. Requests to joint the scheme or for access to data from the project should be sent to the CEM representatives on the project:

Tom Hughes - tom.hughes@nhs.net 
Tom Locker - tlocker@nhs.net 

See the HPA website for more information about syndromic surveillance:

http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/RealtimeSyndromicSurveillance

You can find weekly outputs from the system here:

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1309969387575