title: AEGIS: a robust and scalable real-time public health surveillance system.
abstract: In this report, we describe the Automated Epidemiological Geotemporal Integrated Surveillance system (AEGIS), developed for real-time population health monitoring in the state of Massachusetts. AEGIS provides public health personnel with automated near-real-time situational awareness of utilization patterns at participating healthcare institutions, supporting surveillance of bioterrorism and naturally occurring outbreaks. As real-time public health surveillance systems become integrated into regional and national surveillance initiatives, the challenges of scalability, robustness, and data security become increasingly prominent. A modular and fault tolerant design helps AEGIS achieve scalability and robustness, while a distributed storage model with local autonomy helps to minimize risk of unauthorized disclosure. The report includes a description of the evolution of the design over time in response to the challenges of a regional and national integration environment.
authors.affiliation: Children's Hospital Informatics Program at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. reis@mit.edu
authors.forename: Ben Y
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.forename: Chaim
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kirby
authors.forename: Lucy E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Hadden
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Olson
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: McMurry
authors.forename: James B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: Kenneth D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Mandl
mesh_terms: D023482:Bioterrorism; D003141:Communicable Diseases; D003199:Computer Systems; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006801:Humans; D008404:Massachusetts; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D040442:Public Health Informatics