North Carolina bioterror surveillance system receives health IT award
NC DETECT wins award for helping public health officials to monitor disease outbreak
North Carolina’s Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiological Collection Tool — NC DETECT — has been awarded the 2005 Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. The award was shared with the federal Indian Health Services’ (IHS) Clinical Reporting System.
NC DETECT, formerly known as the NC Bioterrorism and Emerging Infection Prevention System, assists public health officials at all levels within the state to detect outbreaks of infectious disease or bioterrorism, as well as monitor the spread of normally occurring ailments such as influenza, norovirus and varicella. The system grew out of a pilot begun in 1999 as a resource for clinical, administrative and research purposes. It has received significant funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and incorporates data from sources including the N.C. Emergency Department Database, the Carolinas Poison Center, the Pre-hospital Medical Information System, the Piedmont Wildlife Center and the N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine laboratories. The project also partners with the new N.C. Hospital Emergency Surveillance System, on which we reported earlier this month.
-read the HIMSS press release; and read a local report on the aware