News Release

Bioterrorism, infection surveillance system
receives national award for excellence

By TOM HUGHES
UNC School of Medicine

CHAPEL HILL – A computerized system developed by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. Division of Public Health experts to detect bioterrorism and infectious disease outbreaks has received a prestigious national award for excellence.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recently announced that the N.C. Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiological Collection Tool (NC DETECT) was one of two recipients of the 2005 Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence in the public health category.

NC DETECT formerly was known as the N.C. Bioterrorism and Emerging Infection Prevention System.

The Nicholas E. Davies Awards honor health-care organizations for their excellence in using and implementing health information technology.

The UNC School of Medicine’s department of emergency medicine developed NC DETECT in conjunction with the N.C. Division of Public Health. The surveillance system gives public health officials at all levels statewide the ability to detect emerging infectious diseases, such as SARS, and indicators of potential bioterrorism, such as anthrax. In addition, the system monitors trends of normally occurring illnesses such as influenza, norovirus and varicella and tracks public health issues during and after natural disasters.

This system is intended to help public health officials quickly recognize when an outbreak of infectious disease or a bioterror attack is under way and launch containment efforts.

"We at NC DETECT are thrilled to have the good work being done in North Carolina recognized and honored by the Davies Award committee," said Dr. Anna Waller, principal investigator for NC DETECT and research associate professor in UNC’s department of emergency medicine.

"Our project team members, both here at UNC and at the N.C. Division of Public Health, have worked very hard to design a public health surveillance system that is both useful and used. This collaboration has been critical to the success of NC DETECT."

State Health Director Dr. Leah Devlin said the system would prove invaluable. "There has been a great deal of discussion recently about pandemic flu. This is one tool that will help us detect outbreaks of diseases like flu early. The entire state will benefit from NC DETECT."

The other recipient of the Public Health Davies Award was the federal Indian Health Service’s Clinical Reporting System.

"Both of these award recipients in the Public Health Davies Award category have taken a huge step to improve care with the implementation of their respective reporting and surveillance systems," said Dr. Steven J. Steindel, senior adviser for standards and vocabulary at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and chairman of the selection committee for this public health award.

The NC DETECT project began in 1999, when UNC’s department of emergency medicine started developing a statewide emergency department database, named the N.C. Emergency Department Database (NCEDD), that could be used for clinical, administrative and research purposes. The initial pilot project, involving the UNC Health Care System and the New Hanover Health Network, was funded with money from the CDC through the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics.

That successful pilot led to further CDC funding through the N.C. Division of Public Health for the rapid development of the database. NC DETECT now includes data from the NCEDD, 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.

In addition, NC DETECT is a partner in the N.C. Hospital Emergency Surveillance System (NCHESS), which works with 114 state hospitals to provide timely emergency department data for NCEDD, as well as fast access to hospital information for public health investigations.

Epidemiologists and clinicians at UNC’s department of emergency medicine and the N.C. Division of Public Health have collaborated on the planning, development and use of NC DETECT.

Key figures in this project from UNC’s department of emergency medicine are Waller; John McLamb, adjunct assistant professor and director of the Division of Informatics; Amy Ising, adjunct research assistant professor; Terri Eubanks, project director; Dr. Matthew Scholer, assistant professor; and Dr. Debbie Travers, research assistant professor.

Dr. Sam Spicer, formerly an adjunct assistant professor at UNC who is now chief of staff at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center, was one of the original project participants and contributed significantly in the initial phases. In addition, the N.C. Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance Inc. has figured prominently in developing NC DETECT.

Key figures from the N.C. Division of Public Health are Dr. Steve Cline, Dr. Jeff Engel, Dr. Jean-Marie Maillard, Dr. Megan Davies and Dr. Lana Deyneka. Dr. George Ghneim, formerly of the N.C. Division of Public Health and now with the Research Triangle Institute, contributed significantly to developing NC DETECT.

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UNC School of Medicine contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu