Handbook of Biosurveillance

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 624 pages
• Published by: Academic Press
• Edition: 1st Edition May 25, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0123693780
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0123693785
• Book Dimensions: 11 x 8.7 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 4.2 pounds

Reader Reviews
A valuable book, published earlier this year, provides a practical, comprehensive examination of biosurveillance--the systematic process of data collection and analysis for the purposes of detecting and characterizing outbreaks of disease in humans and animals in a timely manner. The Handbook of Biosurveillance, by Michael Wagner, Andrew Moore, and Ron Aryel (Elsevier Inc., 2006), can greatly benefit its target audience of epidemiologists, health directors and authorities, infection control practitioners, researchers and IT professionals at organizations that conduct biosurveillance. Wagner and Moore are well known in the biosurveillance and academic communities; they led the team of software developers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University who, with funding from the Department of Homeland Security, created the Real-Time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) system, now successfully used in 12 of the U.S. states, Canada and Taiwan. The Handbook of Biosurveillance defines and describes the state-of-the-art in biosurveillance practice and research and is unique in the depth of its coverage of all facets of this emerging discipline. The book offers practical advice for first responders and public health officials as well as an in-depth discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of biosurveillance for researchers. It includes and offers expert advice on how to construct and evaluate biosurveillance systems, assemble and analyze data, and build relationships across organizations. It also includes a section devoted to supporting and improving the decision-making ability of public health authorities and other decision-makers. The book provides a basis for determining when available biosurveillance data supports issuing an alert or not. For those who have already decided to embrace biosurveillance by constructing surveillance systems, the book can serve as a training manual. It offers the expertise of leading authorities in the standards required by biosurveillance, the micro- and macro-aspects of constructing a system from top to bottom, how to achieve inter-organizational integration, and the legal and ethical requirements of biosurveillance practitioners. A chapter of the book on project management features a review of collaboration between the RODS Lab and the Tarrant County (Texas) Advanced Practice Center (APC). That effort led to the successful development of a regional surveillance network in North Central Texas. In two years, the network grew from merely an idea to a national model of successful biosurveillance. Today, the network collects and analyzes emergency department chief complaint data from 34 hospitals and three urgent care centers and serves more than thirty public health professionals responsible for ensuring the health of more than 6 million residents in Dallas, Fort Worth and the surrounding communities. The book's project management chapter accurately covers the ways the APC and the RODS Lab worked together in planning, executing, monitoring and controlling the work necessary to bring hospitals onto the network in a logical, effective manner. The book is worth its $99.95 cost if you might need an insightful collection of practical, how-to information on biosurveillance. The APC wishes the book had been available when it first began research into biosurveillance in 2004. Its contents would have been a gold mine to the APC then - just as it can be today to those seeking either to launch new biosurveillance programs or expand their existing initiatives. Dean Lampman [...] Comment | | (Report this)