Queen's University Public Health Informatics (QPHI)

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Queen's University Public Health Informatics (QPHI)

WHO WE ARE:

QPHI is a multidisciplinary group of medical, scientific, academic and information technology professionals working on various syndromic surveillance projects in Kingston, Ontario Canada. We work alongside health practitioners to develop, implement, and manage public health informatics systems strategically and effectively. QPHI helps end-users (from local to international) collect, analyze, manage, and translate data into information to support disease surveillance, management, and response. QPHI efforts include developing new technology solutions, educating stakeholders, informing policy, and conducting research on the appropriate use of real time public health information systems.

WHAT IS PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATICS?:

Public Health Informatics is a new field that is concerned with the systematic application of information and computer sciences to public health practice, research and learning. Modern public health practice requires the increased development and use of sophisticated electronic systems to facilitate disease surveillance, event management, communication, and data exchange among public health personnel at the local, provincial/territorial, and federal levels.

WHY:

As primary care and public health data is increasingly managed electronically, the potential for public health informatics to improve the lives of Canadians is increasing dramatically. Public health informatics offers the potential to help:
  • Identify emerging health threats before they become wide-spread.

  • Manage events/outbreaks effectively to minimize impact.

  • Treat patients and guide public policy by facilitating evidenced-based decision making.

  • proven interdisciplinary approach - integrating emergency and infectious disease medicine, public health, mathematical modeling, community health and epidemiology, computing science, GIS capabilities, and health economics;

QPHI Enhanced Public Health Surveillance leverages non-traditional public health data sources (emergency room visits, telehealth, pharmaceutical sales, occupational health data, etc), automated data acquisition and aberration detection technologies to monitor health indicators in real-time or near real-time in an effort to detect health events earlier than would otherwise be possible with traditional public health methods. Enhanced surveillance offers:
  • More timely, efficient, and effective data collection and analysis;.
  • More appropriate and timely interventions to prevent infectious diseases, thereby saving costs to employers through absenteeism, reducing health care system demands, and protecting the health of Ontarians;
  • A more empowered public health sector through automated tools for real-time collection and preliminary analysis of data to facilitate infection control and outbreak management, and more effective utilization of public health personnel focused on qualitative analysis, informed decision-making and communication with the public;
  • Cost-effective web-based systems integrating public health units and community and tertiary hospitals, data-sharing protocols and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based tools for spatial mapping;
  • Interdisciplinary approach - integrating emergency and infectious disease medicine, public health, mathematical modeling, community health and epidemiology, computing science, GIS capabilities, and health economics;
  • More effective coordination between the public health and acute care sectors that informs decisions about admission rates, bed utilization, staffing demands, and health and safety of hospital personnel.

WHAT WE ARE DOING:

QPHI has five key funded Public Health Research Projects at Present:
  1. Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance KFL&A Public Health and Hastings & Prince Edward Counties Health Unit funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and long-term Care Public Health Division

  2. Protecting the Health of Health Care Workers: Occupational Health Syndromic Surveillance at KGH-funded by the Physicians Services Incorporated (PSI) Foundation

  3. Telehealth Syndromic Surveillance funded by PSI Foundation

  4. Creation of a geospatial mapping decision support system for respiratory and gastrointestinal hospital visit data funded by GeoConnections. (QPHI – Lead proponent)

  5. User needs assessment and creation of an infectious disease simulation tool funded by GeoConnections. (QPHI – collaborator)
All projects have undergone ethical review by Queen's University Research Ethics Board (REB) and adhere to relevant policies and procedures.


QPHI   © 2008
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