A Review of Healthcare, Public Health, and Syndromic Surveillance

ABSTRACT

Due to the ongoing desire for healthcare performance improvement, the latest outbreaks of the avian influenza, and the continuing bioterrorism threat, there is an urgent need for research in healthcare and disease surveillance. In this article we present an overview and review of the general issues involved in healthcare, public health, and syndromic surveillance. In particular, we review existing data collection and surveillance systems, popular surveillance methods, and appropriate performance measures in healthcare and disease surveillance. We also discuss specific challenges and future research in temporal and spatiotemporal surveillance.

KEYWORDS:

• CUSUM
• EWMA
• forecasting
• public heatlh
• regression
• scan statistics
• simulation
• spatial
• temporal
• spatiotemporal surveillance
• time series

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the editor and referees for many useful comments. This research was partially supported by World Health Organization contract OD/TS-07-00529. We are grateful for the comments provided by W. H. Woodall, which have helped improve the clarity of the article.