Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
One hospital-based epidemiologist uses NC DETECT for situation aware-
ness in the hospital when there is a high level of influenza or other acute
respiratory illness. This enhanced level of understanding about the outbreak
within the hospital informs decisions about when to implement heightened
measures to control infection. These would include prompting employees
to be vaccinated, discouraging persons from visiting inpatients, erecting
hygiene stations in the ED that contain respiratory masks for patients, hand
sanitizers, and/or disposable bags for use during times when there is a high
incidence of gastrointestinal illness.
At the time of the interview, the VA system was not part of the NC
DETECT system, but the PHE there had access to NC DETECT, and could
run reports for the region or state and manually compare VA data and
trends with those of other EDs. The VA and other PHEs use NC DETECT
data to validate disease trends that are happening in the community. As
one user put it, “It gives you a little better view of different areas and it
gives you a better overview of what North Carolina is seeing as a group. It
is nice not to operate in a vacuum, which is what most of us [hospitals] did
before this.”
Situation awareness and early detection are also enhanced by the flexibil-
ity of the NC DETECT application. DPH uses local and national information
on disease occurrences to create specialized syndromes; it is relatively easy
for code to be written for new syndromes, or to alter existing syndromes
to detect specific key words. For example, during a nationwide recall of a
common brand of peanut butter because of salmonella
contamination, a fil-
ter was put in place to separate out cases of gastrointestinal symptoms in
which the persons reported eating peanut butter. The resulting investigation
showed no additional cases in North Carolina of salmonella because of the
contaminated peanut butter.
NC DETECT has also been used by DPH to
respond to public health threats
.
During a heat wave in August 2007, DPH and the NC DETECT team cre-
ated a filter for heat-related illnesses. DPH monitored the syndrome signals,
and within days of the end of the heat wave had issued a press release about
patients who sought emergency care at EDs for heat-related illness. Health
warnings during previous heat waves had targeted children and the elderly;
but the NC DETECT data revealed that those most likely to experience heat-
related illness were adults who worked outside and were overwhelmingly
male. This enhanced understanding of susceptible populations was used
by DPH to more effectively target prevention messages and heat-related
warnings.
Another example of the use of NC DETECT for situation awareness
and response was an incident in 2006 in which a chemical storage facility
exploded and burned in central North Carolina. DPH and the UNC DEM
created a filter with key words to find patients reporting exposure to the
fumes.
