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ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2012. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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ISDS 2012 Conference Abstracts

The Black Canyon Forecast Station: Experiences And
Lessons Learned
James M. Wilson*1, 2, Bonnie Koehler3, Kathleen Sramek2 and Treve Henwood2

1Black Canyon Forecast Station, Delta, CO, USA; 2Delta County Memorial Hospital, Delta, CO, USA; 3Delta County Health and
Human Services, Delta, CO, USA

Objective
To evaluate the sociological effect on indigenous biological event

signature recognition and community resilience due to the operational
activities of an infectious disease forecast station.

Introduction
The nation’s first operational infectious disease forecast station,

modeled after warning protocols developed in the meteorology com-
munity, was activated in 2011. The approach was originally pioneered
in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.

Methods
We assembled global event signature and forecast libraries that re-

flected locally diagnosed infectious disease activity and infrastruc-
ture impact in a rural community from a public health, veterinary,
and human clinical medicine perspective. The deployment site is
home to a variety of infectious disease including hantavirus, plague,
tularemia, and West Nile in the context of high wildlife-livestock-
human interfacing. Information derived from the issuance of fore-
casts coupled to situational awareness was shared with the public,
local officials, public health officers, veterinarians, healthcare
providers, and patients through various social media methods.

Results
Provision of 30-60-90 day forecasts for routine and non-routine

endemic infectious disease activity and impact facilitated better co-
ordination of public health messaging and daily conversation with
patients in the inpatient and outpatient settings. The signature of an
unusual, infrastructure-disruptive outbreak of metapneumovirus and
respiratory syncytial virus was recognized and communicated with
enough time to activate effective clinical mitigation protocols. Cost
estimates demonstrated financial benefit at a local level to anticipat-
ing surges of infectious disease activity with enough time to mitigate
patient demand. Community-wide engagement with infectious dis-
ease forecasts and live event advisories included the promotion of
proactive infection control and public health surveillance and re-
sponse, healthcare provider recognition of non-routine infectious dis-
ease, clinical sampling and diagnostic testing protocols, clinician and
patient education, and synchronization of proactive disease reporting
both in the routine daily clinical setting and in times of crisis. Col-

lateral benefit of consistent messaging delivered to the public by the
participating entities was noted. Community awareness of the reper-
toire of indigenous infectious disease activity was expanded beyond
the official public health notification list. Neither issuance of infec-
tious disease forecasts nor advisories issued during crises triggered an
influx of anxious well phone calls or visits to the medical system that
was deemed operationally relevant.

Conclusions
Activation of a local infectious disease forecast station modeled

after a local weather station promotes routine communication of a
broader array of infectious disease activity than that monitored by
public health; facilitates proactive, cost effective healthcare; and en-
abled recognition of unusual, disruptive infectious activity with
enough time to enable mitigation of clinical, infrastructure, and fi-
nancial impact to the community. Routine communication of com-
prehensive infectious disease forecast and situational awareness
information promotes community adaptive fitness to a wide variety
of infectious hazards. The results suggest it is possible to transform
the traditional public health model of data collection and analysis to
one of transparent and open data availability to support innovative
reduction in morbidity and mortality.

Keywords
biosurveillance; forecast; meteorology

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the tremendous contributions of
the staff of Ascel Bio LLC for the design and management of the Black
Canyon Forecast Station; the personal contributions of Mr. Michael Smith
regarding meteorological warning operations; Delta County Memorial
Hospital: Betty Kahrs, Janet Moore, Jason Cleckler, Bev Carlson, Randall
Koehn, Johanna Roeber, and Tom Mingen; David Van Metre of Colorado
State University and Delta County Colorado State University Agriculture
Extension Agent Robbie B. LaValley; and Colorado Department of Agri-
culture Field Veterinarian, Dan Love DVM.

*James M. Wilson
E-mail: jwilson@ascelbio.com

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 5(1):e27, 2013