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 News April 6th, 2011: QPHI Team members make podium presentations at the Ontario Public Health Convention in Toronto, Ontario
Kieran Moore, Adam van Dijk, Paul Belanger, and Dillan Fernando presented at the Ontario Public Health Convention hosted by the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA), the Association of Local Public Health Agencies (alPHa) and the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion (OAHPP). The convention combined research presentations and educational workshops, focusing on the exchange of evidence, ideas, and technology in an effort to advance public health in Ontario. For more information on the Ontario Public Health Convention, visit their website: www.tophc.ca. March 28th, 2011: QPHI Presents at the Health Data Summit at the University of Toronto
Kieran Moore delivered the keynote address at the Health Data Summit hosted by the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) at the University of Toronto this week. This summit addressed the ongoing development of a Geospatial Portal with a Health Informatics component, which will utilize digital access platforms in an effort to improve access to health data within the academic community. Healthcare professionals convened to discuss the removal of barriers that decrease the accessibility of health data for research, an effort which could have a lasting positive impact on health research in Ontario.
February 2011: QPHI Team Members publish an article in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health entitled “Modeling and Syndromic Surveillance for Estimating Weather-Induced Heat-Related Illness”
Geof Hall and Kieran Moore co-wrote a paper published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health that looks at the combination of syndromic surveillance with predictive weather-based models as a tool to estimate emergency department visits for heat-related illness. This paper analyzes weather station observations provided by Environment Canada and compares them with EDSS data from emergency department visits to 10 South-Eastern Ontario hospitals between April 2003 and December 2008. This comparison allows the development of a model that will predict the number of emergency department visits resulting from heat-related illness, a tool with the potential to greatly enhance emergency department preparedness and response, and improve patient care.
January 2011: QPHI is a co-investigator for a South East Local Health Integration Network grant entitled “Understanding Health Inequities and Access to Primary Health Care in South East LHIN Region”
Kieran Moore, Paul Belanger, Suzanne Biro, and Amrit Sehdev have started work on a project addressing the identification and elimination of limitations in the access to primary health care experienced by the high-deprivation population in the South East Local Health Integration Network (SE LHIN). This 2-phase project will apply the input of primary health care providers in the SE LHIN int he development of a survey tool to improve understanding surrounding health inequities in the region.
December 2-5th, 2008: QPHI Attends the Seventh Annual International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina
Members of the QPHI team (Dr. Kieran Moore, Adam van Dijk and Tara L Donovan) presented developments in syndromic surveillance from KFL&A Public Health and QPHI projects on December 2-5th in Raleigh. Two poster presentations were displayed including Infection Watch Live: A real-time, geospatial mapping tool of hospital triage data for public consumption (Adam van Dijk) and Mapping of Occupational Health Visit Data (Tara L Donovan). To view posters, please go to our Presentations section. Information about the 7th Annual ISDS Conference can be found at: www.syndromic.org June 13th, 2008: QPHI hosts a Meeting titled 'Exploring Surveillance Opportunities' in Kingston, Ontario
The QPHI team hosted a surveillance meeting on Friday, June 13th, 2008 in Kingston, Ontario in conjunction with KFL&A Public Health. The surveillance topics discussed included pharmacy, occupational health, telehealth, water quality, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Laboratory data and Geospatial Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance (EDSS). The meeting provided a venue for information sharing, problem solving, development of new ideas, and collaborating and networking opportunities. For agenda details and/or presentations, see the Conferences tab of this site.
Information about the 6th Annual ISDS Conference can be found at: www.syndromic.org February 20-22, 2008: QPHI epidemiologist Tara Donovan to attend the Public Health Preparedness Summit 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia
Ms. Donovan has been invited to give a poster presentation to contribute to the continuing education program at the 2008 Local, State, and Federal Public Health Preparedness Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. The poster titled An Innovative, Integrated Syndromic Surveillance System for Infectious Disease is available for viewing under the Presentations section. January 28th, 2008: QPHI attends Research Day in Kingston, Ontario, hosted by Queen’s Institute of Population and Public Health
Members of the QPHI team (Kate Bassil, Tara Donovan, Adam van Dijk), associated with KFL&A Public Health, will present their respective syndromic surveillance projects. This full-day event provides a venue for Institute members to meet, share their research and explore the diversity of Population and Public Health initiatives currently underway at Queen’s University. Examples are available in the Presentations section. September 18th, 2007: QUESST to Attend the Sixth Annual International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana
Members of the QUESST team (Dr. Kieran Moore and Adam van Dijk) will be presenting developments in syndromic surveillance from KFL&A Public Health and QUESST projects on October 11-12th in Indianapolis. This international conference provides an opportunity to network with colleagues from around the world who are making contributions to the research and development as well as the practice of syndromic surveillance. The highlights from the ISDS sponsored Cross Border Syndromic Surveillance Consultation held in Kingston in June 2007 will be presented at the conference by Dr. Kieran Moore. Information about the 6th Annual ISDS Conference can be found at: www.syndromic.org
September 14th, 2007: QUESST to Attend the 2007 Canadian Public Health Association’s (CPHA) Annual Conference in Ottawa
Members of the QUESST team (Tara Donovan and Adam van Dijk) will be in attendance and presenting at the 2007 CPHA Annual Conference taking place at The Westin Ottawa Congress Centre from September 16th – 19th. The conference will be jointly held with the Canadian Public Health Geomatics Conference and will identify and highlight the importance of population and public health in Canada. Information about CPHA and the conference can be found at: www.cpha.ca
September 13th, 2007: Kingston Public Health, Infonaut, SSMIC and ESRI to Build Real-Time GIS Syndromic Surveillance System
Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health (KFL&A), Infonaut, Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre and ESRI Canada have recently submitted a proposal for significant funding from GeoConnections for the creation of a Geospatial Decision Support System for syndromic surveillance.
This project aims to inform health professionals and the public directly about real-time utilization of seven local Emergency Departments for respiratory and gastrointestinal illness to enable informed decision making. In particular the spatial visualization of this data will allow infection control practitioners, family physicians, community care access centers, long term care facilities, schools and child care centers amongst others to know immediately the current respiratory and gastrointestinal infectious activity in the community. They will have immediate access to data, via a website, to assess the current level of activity of illness in our communities and whether they are located in a "hot" zone. This knowledge could allow enhanced infection control precautions, appropriate isolation of cases and informed decision making. The desired goal is to reduce morbidity and mortality in the community from infectious disease by providing the right message to the right people in the right place, at the right time. For more information on KFL&A Public Health, please visit their website: Health Unit
For information about our collaborating partners, please visit their websites at:
Infonaut,
SSMIC,
ESRI September 13th, 2007: 3D Mapping of Kingston General Hospital
QUESST, affiliated with Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) Public Health are collaborating with SSMIC (Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre) to generate a 3-D GIS rendering of Kingston General Hospital (KGH). QUESST is interested in viewing staff respiratory and gastrointestinal-related occupational health visits by departments (according to wings and floors) of KGH designated as patient care areas. Colour coordinated rates (green = low, red = high) of infectious disease reporting among staff will be displayed by department to provide awareness of infectious disease burden and spread. The information could provide early warning of communicable disease outbreaks within the hospital and allow for implementation of appropriate infection control measures. Consequently, this information may be used to mitigate the spread of disease within the hospital and minimize the risk to health care workers thereby reducing health care worker absenteeism. For more information on KFL&A Public Health, please visit their website at: www.kflapublichealth.ca For information about our collaborating partner, please visit their website at: SSMIC |
