 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 science 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 managed increasingly electronically, the potential for public health informatics to improve the lives of Canadians is expanding dramatically.Public health informatics has the ability to:
- 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.
- Integrate emergency and infectious disease medicine, public health, mathematical modeling, community health and epidemiology, computing science, GIS capabilities, and health economics in a proven interdisciplinary approach.
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 which 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 disease spread, 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 with community and tertiary hospitals, data-sharing protocols, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based tools for spatial mapping;
- An nterdisciplinary approach which integrates 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, and staffing demands, and ensures the health and safety of hospital personnel.
What We Are Doing:
QPHI has several key funded Public Health research projects at present:
- 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
- Rural well water contamination and human health: An investigation in Eastern Ontario funded by the Physicians’ Services Incorporated (PSI) Foundation
- Modeling and Syndromic Surveillance for Estimating Weather-Induced Heat-Related Illness funded by Health Canada
- Automated Mortality Surveillance in South-Eastern Ontario for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness supported by KFL&A Public Health
- Understanding Health Inequities and Access to Primary Health Care in South East LHIN Region funded by the South East Local Health Integration Network (SE LHIN)
- Stimulating Spatial Temporal Patterns and Evaluating Health Outcomes of Communicable Diseases funded by CODIGEOSIM
- Public Health Response in Ontario to the H1N1 Outbreak: Stakeholder Perceptions and Policy Suggestions Relating to Planning, Implementation, Vulnerable populations, and Vaccination funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research
All projects have undergone ethical review by Queen's University Research Ethics Board (REB) and adhere to relevant
policies and procedures.
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