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The system will both protect citizens and meet the requirements for theCenter for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National ElectronicDisease Surveillance System (NEDSS). NEDSS is the infrastructure cornerstonefor the nation's Public Health Information Network (PHIN).
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The disease reporting and management system, which is being piloted inUtah, will be adaptable in all 50 states and available under an open sourcelicense later this year. It is designed to support local health departments inthe early detection and investigation of individual cases and local clustersof communicable disease, while simultaneously meeting the state and federalneeds of outbreak control, disease surveillance and epidemiologic research.
According to the December 2007 report from Trust for America's Health,only eight states are currently fully prepared to protect the public fromdisease, disasters and bio-terrorism. Existing NEDSS solutions are either tooexpensive or outdated and don't meet the states' needs. CSI's open sourceinfectious disease reporting and management system, developed with thecollaborative software development model, is significantly less expensive andmeets all local, state, and federal requirements.
The collaborative software development model, based on a uniquecombination of industry standards, open source business practices, and leansoftware development techniques was chosen in order to bring multiplestakeholders with a common need together.
"We are excited by the promise that this collaborative approach offers toprovide software that meets our needs," said Dr. Robert Rolfs, MD, StateEpidemiologist, State of Utah Department of Health. "It will really help us todo our job of protecting people's health by detecting and preventing thespread of communicable disease."
"The project is a perfect example of how collaboration in software canhave an impact on society -- in this case, we can help prevent the spread ofdisease and improve quality of care for patients by developing a system thatworks for everyone," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of CSI. "The State of Utah istaking a necessary leadership role to begin the rollout of an infectiousdisease reporting and management system for the 21st century. We are veryexcited to enable that transition and to work with other states to deploy thisimportant system."
"Disease surveillance is a critical component of public health, it servesto protect all of the citizens of our state on a daily basis. Through thisunique partnership and approach to developing a solid detection managementsystem, we believe we're serving our citizens' very best interests," said JonHuntsman, Utah's Governor. "We're looking forward to partnering with ourneighboring states to enable the same level of public health service acrossstate lines."
The project has more than 100 contributors with a core team of 15 members,which includes doctors, nurses, and epidemiologists (subject matter experts)and IT managers from across the state, and CSI program managers anddevelopers. It is being built with an open source software stack that includesNovell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, PostgreSQL, Apache HTTP Server, ApacheTomcat, Java and JRuby. The system and database resides and is maintained onservers managed by the Utah Department of Technology Services on its securenetwork, accessible by users in health departments across the state.
"The combination of Lean and open source allows us to provide high qualitysoftware releases early and often and to involve all the major stakeholders inthe process," said Mike Herrick,
