Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (July 28, 2010). Public Health Surveillance Using Emergency Medical Service Logs-U.S.-Mexico Land Border, El Paso, Taxes, 2009. Jama Network: The Journal of the American Medical Association. Retrieved October 7, 2012 from http://jama.jamanetwork.com/mobile/article.aspx?articleid=186308
In the United States, data systems are created by the ongoing, systematic collection of health, demographic, and other information through federally funded national surveys; vital statistics, public and private administrative and claims data; regulatory data, and medical records data. Although health surveillance was initially focused on infectious diseases, surveillance systems now monitor the incidence of a broad range of health events. Some of these events include infectious and chronic diseases, injury, disability, occupational health events, environmental exposures, personal behaviors, and the use of health services.
Certain public data systems are designed to support public health surveillance. Some of the public data systems have used well-defined protocols and standard analytic methods for assessing specific health outcomes, exposures, or other endpoints. However, other data systems have been designed for a different purpose but could be used by public health programs for surveillance. This article supported more reasons and reliabilities to the important and ethical impact relating to the role of public health surveillance. In 2008, approximately 358 million travelers entered the United States. 206 million arrived via land ports of entry (POEs) on the U.S.–Mexico border. Effective responses to infectious diseases of public health importance among travelers requires timely identification and reporting to state and federal health authorities. Currently, notifications are made primarily by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers to CDC quarantine stations. However, CBP personnel have competing priorities and limited public health training. To evaluate the utility of monitoring emergency medical service (EMS) dispatch and response logs for ill travelers with symptoms or signs suggestive of infectious diseases, CDC screened medical records of patients transported by EMS during 2009 from the four POEs in El Paso, Texas. The screening process was conducted using commercial software that monitors EMS logs and sends alerts in real time, based on pre-established criteria (i.e., records containing keywords suggesting infectious diseases). Records that met the criteria were forwarded to El Paso Quarantine Station (QS) personnel and reviewed within 24 hours. If a reportable infectious disease was suspected, the final diagnosis was requested from the receiving hospital. This report summarizes the results of the evaluation, which found that, of 50,779 EMS responses in the city of El Paso, 455 (0.9%) records met alert criteria, 86 (0.2%) needed diagnostic confirmation, and nine (<0.1%) were for reportable infectious diseases. Monitoring EMS logs could enhance detection of travelers with serious infections at POEs but requires additional screening and follow-up by CDC. The use of public health surveillance system in tracking or monitoring infectious imported disease is a step-forward to improving the quality or potential disease transmission in US communities. Public health surveillance seeks to assess and track the health of the public, outline public health priorities, assess programs, and stimulate research as highlighted in this article. Case surveillance system focuses on individuals, or sometimes groups of individuals, to identify individuals with certain diseases and take action to stop the spread of disease.
