Sharing a Summarized Public Health Surveillance Data Set (SPHSDS)

The American Health Information Community defined a minimum biosurveillance data set (MBDS) that includes discrete de-identified patient-level data.  While MBDS data are de-identified, some raise concerns that sharing even individually de-identified patient level data may infringe on both patient privacy and public health jurisdictional responsibility, and result in the sharing of large data sets that are difficult to manage and maintain.  Some public health stakeholders have advocated for an incremental data-sharing model to address these concerns.  Such a model first delivers summarized biosurveillance data before more detailed patient-level data is revealed when public health events of interest are identified.  This presentation explores approaches to using a summarized public health surveillance data set (SPHSDS) to support public health situational awareness.  Multiple perspectives and approaches for using a SPHSDS will be discussed, including those of several state and local public health departments and health information exchanges (HIEs).  Also discussed will be the current and planned activities for using a SPHSDS by the CDC’s three “Situational Awareness through HIE” awardees in New York, Indiana and Washington State / Idaho.