The ESSENCE of Disease Surveillance
TS-5564

ESSENCE (Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics) is a disease surveillance system developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory that utilizes Java technology. The purpose of ESSENCE is to provide early warning of abnormal health conditions that may be the result of bioterrorism or a disease outbreak. In addition, ESSENCE is a valuable medical situational awareness tool for epidemiologists and health officials who continually monitor the health of their communities. It receives a variety of health indicator data: doctor visit information, emergency room chief complaints, sales of over-the-counter drugs, school absenteeism, and more. The health indicator data is processed and then analyzed with statistical anomaly detection algorithms. The results of the algorithms and the health indicator data itself are made available through a Java technology-based web application.

ESSENCE has been an operational system since 1999, providing disease surveillance for the National Capital Region (DC and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia). Currently there are several other health jurisdictions using ESSENCE in the United States, as well as a military version that provides surveillance for military medical treatment facilities worldwide.

This session describes the technical challenges encountered and solutions found during the development of ESSENCE, focusing on three key areas: data ingestion/text parsing, anomaly detection algorithms, and user interface design.

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