Indiana becomes first state to participate in national health surveillance program

State health officials today announced that the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) has become the first state health department to participate in the BioSense surveillance program. This allows the ISDH and local health departments to quickly identify disease outbreaks and potential outbreaks, even before they have been identified by local health care providers.

Through their state-level Public Health Surveillance System program, the ISDH became the first state health department to provide statewide data directly to the BioSense program, a national syndromic surveillance system. BioSense is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) national biosurveillance and disease detection efforts.

"The benefit of the program is that it helps us maintain a coordinated, timely, and appropriate response to outbreak investigations," said State Health Commissioner Judy Monroe, M.D. "We can be better prepared to manage public health emergencies because BioSense provides real-time health information."

Data is sent to the ISDH from 69 hospital emergency departments throughout the state, and then passed on to BioSense. These data are used to monitor possible outbreaks in the state and local communities.

The CDC hopes to have 350 hospitals participating in BioSense nationwide by the end of 2006.

By Indiana Department of Health

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Posted December 25th, 2006 by harminka