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ISDS 2016 Conference Abstracts

Facilitating Public Health Action through Surveillance 
Dashboards
Adrienne MacDonald*, Hussain R. Usman, Deena Hinshaw, David P. Meurer and 
Christopher Sikora
Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Objective
To address the limitations of traditional static surveillance 

reporting by developing in-house infrastructure to create and maintain 
interactive surveillance dashboards.

Introduction
Traditionally, public health surveillance departments collect, 

analyze, interpret, and package information into static surveillance 
reports for distribution to stakeholders. This resource-intensive 
production and dissemination process has major shortcomings that 
impede end users from optimally utilizing this information for public 
health action. Often, by the time traditional reports are ready for 
dissemination they are outdated. Information can be difficult to find 
in long static reports and there is no capability to interact with the 
data by users. Instead, ad hoc data requests are made, resulting in 
inefficiencies and delays.

Use of electronic dashboards for surveillance reporting is not 
new. Many public health departments have worked with information 
technology (IT) contractors to develop such technically sophisticated 
products requiring IT expertise. The technology and tools now exist 
to equip the public health workforce to develop in-house surveillance 
dashboards, which allow for unprecedented speed, flexibility, and 
cost savings while meeting the needs of stakeholders. At Alberta 
Health Services (AHS), in-house, end-to-end dashboard development 
infrastructure has been established that provides epidemiologists and 
data analysts full capabilities for effective and timely reporting of 
surveillance information.

Methods
An internal assessment of the available resources and infrastructure 

within AHS was conducted to iteratively develop a new analytics 
model that provides a foundation for in-house dashboard development 
capacity. We acquired SAS® and Tableau® software and conducted 
internal training for skills development and to transition staff to the 
new model. This model is highlighted below using our respiratory 
virus surveillance (RVS) dashboard as an example.

For the RVS dashboard, stakeholder engagements were 
conducted to understand the end users’ needs. Next, data access was 
improved, where possible, by securing direct access to source data  
(e.g. emergency department visits for influenza like illness (ILI), 
Health Link calls, hospital admissions, etc.) on existing database 
servers. SAS® code was written for routinely connecting with 
multiple data sources, data management and analysis, data quality 
assurance, and posting summary data on a secure Oracle® server.

The Tableau® dashboard development application was then used 
to connect to the summary data on the Oracle® server, create the 
interactive dashboards and publish the final products to the AHS 
Tableau server environment. Key users were consulted in the iterative 
development of the interface to optimize usability and relevant 
content.

Finally, the product was promoted to stakeholders with a 
commitment to use their feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Results
In-house generated surveillance dashboards provide more timely 

access to comprehensive surveillance information for a broad 
audience of over 108,000 AHS employees; within as little as 3 hours 
of all data being available. They facilitate user-directed deep dives 
into the data to understand a more complete surveillance picture as 
well as stimulating hypothesis generation. Additionally they enhance 
productivity of personnel, by significantly reducing response times 
for ad hoc request and to generate reports, freeing up more time to 
respond to other emerging public health issues.

Looking specifically at the RVS dashboard, its ability to bring all 
relevant surveillance information to one place facilitates valuable 
discussions during status update meetings throughout the influenza 
season. Among other things it has allowed Medical Officers of 
Health, emergency department staff, epidemiologists and others to 
make informed decisions pertaining to public messaging, the need 
for reallocating resources, such as staffing and handling the burden of 
ILI patients, as well as determining the necessity of opening influenza 
assessment centers.

Conclusions
Surveillance dashboards can facilitate public health action by 

assembling comprehensive information in one place in a timely 
manner so that informed decisions can be made in emerging situations.

Keywords
Surveillance; dashboards; Respiratory Virus Surveillance

Acknowledgments
Jason Scarlett; Greg MacIntyre; Surveillance and Reporting, AHS; Public 
Health Leadership, AHS

*Adrienne MacDonald
E-mail: adrienne.macdonald@ahs.ca

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 9(1):e102, 2017