According to the company, the new platform will allow public health officials to quickly track and predict communicable diseases in order to increase their reaction time to bioterrorism, chemical terrorism and other public health emergencies. It is currently being used by the New York State Department of Health.
Misys said the technology digitalizes paper-based reporting systems usually deployed in state health departments. It works by aggregating reportable disease conditions from a hospital laboratory system and transmitting the information in a single data set to a state department of health database.
This data is then disseminated to statewide health departments and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), a public health initiative that was set up to provide a standards-based, integrated approach to disease surveillance.
