Sentinel 5.17.5 User Guide

EDSS Overview

Historically, public health communicable Electronic Disease Surveillance Systems (EDSS) were comprised of disparate paper-based systems or data collection systems that utilized older technology. The reported data often lacked timeliness and completeness. These systems were not as robust, accurate, or timely as they needed to be in order to reliably monitor disease outbreaks, potential bioterrorism incidents, or newly emergent infectious diseases.

Older surveillance systems were not developed with data integration in mind. Varying architectures, data definitions, and uses led to the creation of individual datasets, often with redundant information and no readily available means of relating to other existing data resources.

To address these issues, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated efforts to standardize public health datasets and maximize their effectiveness. The Public Health Information Network (PHIN) promotes existing and emerging national standards for sharing public health information, such as:

Security standards that address the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
Standard Electronic exporting of health data through Health Level 7
Public Health Logical Data Model

These standards and guidelines offer public health a new roadmap toward developing a productive technical infrastructure. With these standards and guidelines, an integrated surveillance system to support public health will ultimately incorporate data from a variety of sources including emergency responders, pharmaceutical retailers, laboratories, hospitals, physicians, schools, and many other resources within the community.

Sentinel EDSS Vision and the Future

Sentinel is part of an overall vision to enhance decision-making based on more timely and accurate provision of communicable disease information; thus, to facilitate a more effective public health intervention. Sentinel is designed to be an integral component of a larger surveillance environment for the state that can support communicable disease and bioterrorism investigation efforts.

Confidentiality

While modern communication methods have made our lives easier, they also pose a threat to the privacy and security of personal information. Sentinel seeks to safeguard health information privacy and security by:

Governing the privacy of individually identifiable health information
Restricting uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI)
Protecting against unauthorized and unnecessary access to protected health information

Every Sentinel user has a responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of data stored within this system.