PA National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (PA-NEDSS)

Public Health Preparedness > Communication > PA National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (PA-NEDSS) > PA-NEDSS Functionality


PA-NEDSS System Functionality Technical Details: PA-NEDSS was built with a combination of commercial and custom-developed software: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Internet Information Services Visual Basic.NET Active Server Pages .NET and dynamic HTML Oracle Cognos Functional Details: Searching Case Management Contact Management Patient Management Investigations Management Analysis & Reporting Electronic Lab Reporting Alerts Form Data Extract Aggregate Reporting Search Functionality Allows users to search for data using one of the following ten search types: Patient/Contact Allows you to search for a patient or contact based on first name or last name using an "Exact," "Soundex," or "Contains" search type, previous names, aliases, or zip code Report Allows you to search for disease reports based on Report ID, status, or test results Investigation Allows you to search for investigations based on Investigation ID, case classification status, or assigned investigator Outbreak Allows you to search for outbreaks created in the system PA-NEDSS Identifier Allows you to search for a patient, disease report, investigation or environmental inspection based on the Patient ID, Report ID, Investigation ID or Environmental Inspection ID Accession Allows you to search for a specific laboratory test report User Allows you to search for registered organizations (hospitals, laboratories) or registered persons (public health staff, physicians, etc) Address/Phone Allows you to search by address or phone number for any organization or person in the application Note Allows you to search for keywords in the free text notes fields Report/Investigation Allows you to search for reports and investigations simultaneously based on condition, assigned investigator or responsible jurisdiction Return to top Case Management Functionality Case Management functionality for the Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), Tuberculosis, and Lead program areas allows investigators to: Create follow-up activities as part of an investigation to track home visits, interviews, or drug treatment plans over time Link observations to a particular activity to track how information is obtained and information sources Link contacts and subsequent investigations to index the patient for a comprehensive view of the patient and spread of the disease Return to top Contact Management Functionality Investigators for the Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), Tuberculosis, Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD), Infectious Diseases (IDE), Lead and HIV/AIDS program areas have the following functionality: Enter new contacts, edit existing contacts, or link the contact to the follow-up activity that identified the contact (e.g. patient interview) Designate patients that already exist in PA-NEDSS as a contact allowing all of the applicable contact fields to be populated with existing patient data Initiate an investigation or view existing investigation information for a contact Return to top Patient Management Functionality Patient Management functionality for the Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), Tuberculosis, Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD), Infectious Diseases (IDE), Lead and HIV/AIDS program areas allows investigators to: Locate and merge duplicate patient records that exist in the database Return to top Investigations Management Functionality Investigations Management functionality for the Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), Tuberculosis, Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD), Infectious Diseases (IDE), Lead and HIV/AIDS program areas allows investigators to: Conduct investigations and link a single report or multiple reports to an investigation Create an outbreak by linking multiple investigations together Transfer ownership of an investigation to another investigator or another jurisdiction Return to top Analysis & Reporting Functionality Analysis & Reporting (A&R) functionality allows public health staff in the Epidemiology (EPI), Tuberculosis (TB), Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD), Lead, Tuberculosis (TB), and HIV/AIDS program areas to: Create reports containing disease data Link patient information to disease data Visually represent data in charts and graphs The data in A&R is refreshed nightly from the data in the PA-NEDSS database. Return to top Electronic Lab Reporting Electronic Laboratory Reports (ELR) feed directly into PA-NEDSS. Lab reports from ELR that cannot be brought into PA-NEDSS because of too much missing data will continue to be sent out to the field by e-mail. Users have the ability to manage incoming ELRs that are ready for PA-NEDSS. Return to top Alerts Investigators in all program areas have the ability to create new alerts and specify which PA-NEDSS users will receive the alerts Return to top Form Letter Data Extract PA-NEDSS provides investigators the ability to extract data from the database and generate form letters Return to top Aggregate Reporting Aggregate Reporting functionality provides capabilities for gathering important information during identified and potential circumstances during which reporting of individual patients may be unnecessary or unsustainable due to report volumes or the nature of the information being requested. In lieu of reporting individual patients, disease reports can be entered for a Public Health Event (PHE) for aggregate counts for patients and associated information informing the status of a PHE. Return to top