Contact Information: Adam van Dijk avandijkkflapublichealth.ca

1
Infection Watch Live A real-time, geospatial
mapping tool of hospital triage data for public
consumption Adam van Dijk MSc, Matt McPherson,
Chris Sambol, Kieran M. Moore M.D.
Objective

• To inform health professionals and the public
  directly about real-time utilization of local
  Emergency Departments for respiratory and
  gastrointestinal illness to enable enhanced
  communication and collaboration between Public
  Health and health care workers.

• Most health units do not incorporate spatial
  information into disease surveillance there is a
  growing body of knowledge that indicates such
  data can be useful in tracking the spread of
  certain diseases.
• The prompt detection of respiratory and
  gastrointestinal related illnesses are of
  particular importance due to the rapid
  transmission and potential burden on the
  community.

Fig. 2 Enlarged map of respiratory activity for
children 0-4 years of age on Nov. 17th subdivided
by forward sortation area (postal boundary).
Components
Fig. 1 Main landing page of Infection Watch
Live showing real-time maps of illness activity.
User Acceptance

• Publicly accessible website branded as Infection
  Watch Live (IWL) which will publish local maps.
  The interface is a web-based GIS application
  developed using ESRI ArcGIS Server.
• System uses anonymized, non-identifiable,
  real-time, emergency department respiratory and
  gastrointestinal visit data from an already
  existing real-time Emergency Department Syndromic
  Surveillance (EDSS) system in Kingston, Ontario.
• Expected users include medical officers of
  health, nurses, physicians, hospital
  administrators, long-term care homes, schools,
  child care, employers, EMS and local citizens.
• Key functionalities
• Todays Maps snapshot view of current activity
  (Fig. 1 2)
• Advanced Maps simple GIS interface (Fig. 3)
• Illness Trends animated historical activity
• WMS ability to consume data in external
  applications
• Prevention and Info enables the community

• Initial user feedback came from nurses, public
  health professionals, community members, parents,
  and infection control practitioners.
• Infection Watch Live was given a 3.9 average
  rating by users (scale 0 not very useful 5
  very useful)
• Top three uses for IWL were general community
  illness update, knowledge will guide me in the
  care of my family, knowledge will aid in
  infection prevention

Benefits
Fig. 3 Screen shot of the advanced maps section
on Infection Watch Live which gives users more
control over how they view local, illness
activity maps.

• Enables informed decision making in the
  community.
• Provides the community with current Emergency
  Department utilization data for respiratory and
  gastrointestinal illness.
• Representing data by neighborhood enables the
  community to react to current respiratory and
  gastrointestinal infections in their area.

Next Steps

• Expected public launch on January 1, 2009
• Ongoing performance monitoring and user testing
• Continue engaging local stakeholders
• Possible future integration of additional data
  sources
• Expansion to other health units

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Neil
Watson, Marie Alexander, Paul Beach, Sevaan
Franks, Dillan Fernando, Niall Wallace, Justin
Chenier and Ryan Backus all of whom provided
considerable help and expertise in the
development of this application.
Contact Information Adam van Dijk -
avandijk_at_kflapublichealth.ca