Free-Text Mining to Improve Syndrome Definition Matching Across Emergency Departments

Standard syndrome definitions for ED visits in ESSENCE rely on chief complaints. Visits with more words in the chief complaint field are more likely to match syndrome definitions. While using ESSENCE, we observed geographic differences in chief complaint length, apparently related to differences in electronic health record (EHR) systems, which resulted in disparate syndrome matching across Idaho regions.

January 21, 2018

Syndromic Surveillance for Situation Awareness: Understanding Syndrome Performance

The August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse in Idaho was anticipated to lead to a large influx of visitors in many communities, prompting a widespread effort to assure Idaho was prepared. To support these efforts, the Idaho Syndromic Surveillance program (ISSp) developed a plan to enhance situation awareness during the event by conducting syndromic surveillance using emergency department (ED) visit data contributed to the National Syndromic Surveillance Program’s BioSense platform by Idaho hospitals.

January 21, 2018

Medication Refill - Idaho Division of Public Health

The attached query was developed to track medication refill encounters in emergency departments in ESSENCE during evacuations or extended mass gathering events. The query was initially developed for use with the chief complaint, triage note, and discharge diagnosis code (ICD-10 CM). 

 

February 28, 2018

Hypothermia/Cold Exposure - Idaho Division of Public Health

This query is used to assess trends in hypothermia or cold exposure in emergency department visits in ESSENCE. The query captures cold exposure, hypothermia, and frost bite using chief complaint, triage note, and discharge diagnosis code (ICD-10CM). The query does not exclude hypothermia related to an underlying medical condition.

February 28, 2018

Homelessness - Idaho Division of Public Health

The homelessness syndrome was developed to identify emergency department visits in ESSENCE for patients who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. The syndrome is intended for use with chief complaint, triage notes, and discharge diagnosis codes (ICD-10 CM). The definition heavily relies on diagnosis codes primarily used by non-critical access hospitals and artificial exclusion of critical access facilities should be considered when data are interpreted.

February 28, 2018

Contact Us

NSSP Community of Practice

Email: syndromic@cste.org

 

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