Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
14.5.4 Message Attribute {
status
} ........................................................ 281
14.5.4.1 CAP Profile Considerations for RTBP Project.......281
14.5.5 Message Attribute {
m sgTy p e
} .................................................... 282
14.5.5.1 CAP Profile Considerations for RTBP Project.......283
14.5.6 Message Attribute {
scope
} ......................................................... 283
14.5.6.1 CAP Profile Considerations for the RTBP Project ....284
14.5.7 Message Attribute {
priority
} ..................................................... 284
14.5.7.1 CAP Profile Considerations for the RTBP Project ....285
14.5.8 Message Attribute {
event
} ......................................................... 286
14.5.8.1
CAP Profile Considerations for the RTBP Project:
.....286
14.5.9 Message Attribute {
message
}..................................................... 286
14.5.9.1 CAP Profile Considerations for the RTBP
Project ..............................................................287
14.6 Conclusions.............................................................................................. 287
References............................................................................................................. 288
14.1 Introduction
The Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP) is a multipartner research
initiative to study the potential for new Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) to improve early detection and notification of disease
outbreaks in Sri Lanka and India. Experts in the field of biosurveillance and
health informatics have argued that improvements in disease detection and
notification can be achieved by introducing more efficient means of gather-
ing, analyzing, and reporting on data from multiple locations (Wagner 2006).
New information and communication technologies (ICTs) are regarded as a
central means to achieve these efficiency gains. The primary research objec-
tive of the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP) is to examine these
claims more closely by producing evidence to indicate in what ways and
to what extent the introduction of new ICTs might achieve efficiency gains
when integrated with existing disease surveillance and detection systems.*
One important area of study is in the use of new ICTs to issue real-time
alerts and notifications to local health officials. The RTBP research design
includes the development of a test-bed using Common Alerting Protocol
*
Conceptually, it may be important to distinguish between the terms biosurveillance and dis-
ease surveillance. For instance, Wagner (2006, p. 4) makes the point that “[t]he terms disease
surveillance and public health surveillance connote disease surveillance practiced by gov-
ernmental public health. Biosurveillance allows us to broaden the scope of our discussion to
include many other organizations that monitor for disease, such as hospitals, agribusinesses,
and zoos [emphasis in original].” Wagner also notes that the terms disease surveillance and
public health surveillance may connote programs that focus on noninfectious diseases.
Finally, Wagner suggests that, whereas public health surveillance may tend to focus primar-
ily on disease outbreak detection, a central concern in biosurveillance is “disease outbreak
characterization (e.g., determining the organism, source, route of transmission, spatial distri-
bution, and number of affected individuals).”
