The National Strategy for Biosurveillance, July 2012, is formulated around four core functions: 1) Scan and discern the environment; 2) Identify and integrate essential information; 3) Alert and inform decision makers; and 4) Forecast and advise Impacts.  This workshop will focus on the second core function – Identify and Integrate Essential Information.  This function is focused to expedite incident detection and assessment.  “Although all incidents have unique aspects, there are common elements of any national public health emergency.  As with a health care provider and a new patient, there are certain key questions asked to identify symptoms and narrow probable causes to assist with patient treatment.”  In order to fulfill this requirement the community must improve diagnostic capability, especially at point-of-care to enable accurate and timely collection of information for early detection and throughout an incident or outbreak.A point-of-care (POC) system is a hospital or outpatient information system that includes bedside terminals, instrumentation, sensors, or other devices for capturing and entering data at the location where the patients receive their care.  Doctors and clinicians use POC systems to record directly the details of patient encounters, to review medical information, and to order tests, referrals, prescriptions, and other services related to the patient’s ailments.  Modern POC systems are being designed to replace many of the functions previously associated with paper documents.

POC systems are part of the future of biosurveillance.  A POC system facilitates the electronic capture of key diagnostic data that is directly or readily translated to computer-interpretable form.  POC systems typically include decision support tools like drug interactions and to even suggest diagnoses.  Ideally doctors and clinicians will have sensors that use naturally bodily fluids for initial diagnosis and then the information is transmitted directly into the POC system where further analysis is conducted and feedback provided to doctor or clinician in real time.

Topics to be addressed will include:

• Improve point of care (POC) diagnostics capabilities
• Accurate and real time collection for physicians and clinicians
• POC decision support capabilities – i.e. diagnoses and drug interactions
• POC DNA sequencing
• Link POC results to public health databases and near real time feedback mechanisms
• Data standards for interoperability of POC system, the electronic health record, and biosurveillance-related databases
• Data analysis and modeling supporting POC-generated data – i.e. determining relationship between the completeness of sampling of a population and the size of outbreaks of diseases that can be detected

 

For more information, please visit the Official Event Website.