Technical Updates

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Updated August 24, 2023

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Syndromic surveillance card updated sept 15

Patching Schedule

  • August 15: NSSP vendor patches (Testing and Development) 12:00–8:00 AM ET (Completed)
  • August 17: NSSP vendor patches (Onboarding and Production) 12:00–8:00 AM ET (Completed)
  • September 19: NSSP vendor patches (Testing and Development) 12:00–8:00 AM ET
  • September 21: NSSP vendor patches (Onboarding and Production) 12:00–8:00 AM ET

NSSP Software Release Scheduled for September 2023

NSSP will release software update 2.10 to the Access & Management Center (AMC), Data Quality Analytics and Visualization (DQAV), and New Data Source Development (NDSD). We thank members of the NSSP Community of Practice who voluntarily conducted user accessibility testing (UAT). Your feedback benefits users and helps us maintain high-quality products.

AMC Updates

Internal and External UAT

  • Manage Users tab: Added capability to capture User Type
  • Data Access tab:
    • Added framework for eventual addition of a new data source: National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS)
    • Implemented pagination for Data Table
    • Added “Emergency Response” access flag
  • Reports tab:
    • Added a filter to remove NSSP Rules
    • Implemented pagination for Data Table

Internal UAT Only

  • Admin tab: Added a PIV Usage Report to support Operations Team
  • Manage Users tab: Added capability to disable login after a period of inactivity
  • MFT tab:
    • Added Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) identification
    • Added capability to check for Duplicate Primary Facility Addresses

DQAV Updates

Internal and External UAT

  • Added initial version of NSSP PRESS, which allows dynamic sharing of information between NSSP and sites
    • Maintain a corpus of reports for NSSP community use
    • Provide user interface (UI) for manual publication management
    • Build UI on application programming interface (API) that can be leveraged to automate publication
  • Refine and enhance DQDB filtering:
    • Create extract, transform, and load pipeline for dashboard enhancement: Modify existing tables to aggregate completeness, validity, and timeliness metrics for C_Patient_Class by facility
    • Added capability to apply filters to C_Patient_Class

NDSD Updates

Internal UAT Only

  • Added Mortality Completeness Report
  • Added .TRX (Transax) file format for use in Mortality Process Check

NSSP PRESS: Collaboration at its Best in a Shared Reporting Environment!
Whether you’re searching for a specific report, exploring new reports, or accessing NSSP-published data, we’re confident the new NSSP Publication & Reporting Enterprise for Syndromic Surveillance (PRESS) will revolutionize collaboration.

Unlike shared drives, code repositories, and other file hosting services, NSSP PRESS provides an association-focused, metadata-rich toolbox for contextualizing and connecting reports, authors, and audiences.

NSSP PRESS uses content tags, report categorization, user subscriptions, scheduled and serialized releases, and custom affinity groups. Public health agencies and constituents can build communities around centralized and interrelated content.

Initially, using your existing AMC credentials, you’ll be able to get dynamic, data-driven content NSSP publishes. Access NSSP PRESS from a menu item at the NSSP Dashboards URL.

Mortality Data

Onboarding of mortality data can be fast. To add the mortality data source for your site, please contact nssp@cdc.gov. Commonly asked questions about mortality data are posted on the NSSP website. An NSSP article describes the routing of mortality data. There’s also a slack channel: #Mortality-data.

Onboarding

Thanks to everyone who attended the BioSense Platform Data Validation Call on August 8, 2023. During these calls, the onboarding team holds an open forum to answer questions, discuss concerns, and share tips and resources.

More than 70 community members attended! Discussion was lively, covering many different onboarding and data validation topics:

  • Master Facility Table (MFT) Status and Functionality
  • How to Interpret Daily Site Processing Summary: The Onboarding Team explained the timeframes and brief description located below each table on the Daily Site Processing Summary.
  • How to Improve Diagnosis Completeness: Have you asked for billing diagnosis? Although this isn’t the preferred method, it might be the only option. Are updates being sent after the patient is discharged?
  • How to Improve Chief Complaint (especially for non-EDs): Ask and map to where the facility captures the reason for patient presentation.
woman in conference call taking notes

BioSense Platform
Data Validation Call:
October 4, 2023, 3:00 PM ET

To receive an invite, select “Onboarding Communications” in your AMC User Profile, or email a request to nssp@cdc.gov.

  • How to Improve Data Quality for Facilities in Production: Facility staff might question why processes that were good enough before aren’t good enough now. Explain how facilities onboarded prior to 2017 followed a different implementation guide than the current standard: PHIN Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance: Emergency Department, Urgent Care, Inpatient and Ambulatory Care Settings Release 2.0. One purpose for revisiting production facilities and re-onboarding when there’s a change in electronic health records is to promote continual improvement and usability of data.
  • How to Address Criticality of Data Timeliness for Surveillance During Onboarding/Re-onboarding: Are you experiencing a workflow issue or a delay in the facility sending data? Any delay in sending data could be related to the local interface, or engine, or to the vendor.
  • Explanation of Patient Class and Why it Could Change during the Visit. The decision to exclude a patient class, such as “V” for observation, will depend on the facility and how data are affected by patient class.
  • Never be afraid to ask the basic questions! Sometimes, you need to explore the fundamentals of a connection or workflow or data mapping to identify the cause and solution needed. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to make sure the appropriate people and stakeholders are involved, including facility representatives (technical resources and workflow experts) and vendor contacts.

Questions about onboarding or data quality? Every other month the onboarding team hosts the BioSense Platform Data Validation Call to focus on what’s important to you. The next call will be held October 4, 2023, at 3:00 PM ET. To join, please email the NSSP mailbox (nssp@cdc.gov) or create an NSSP Service Desk ticket.

Additional resources are available between calls or for topics outside the scope of these calls. You may contact NSSP Site Liaisons by emailing nssp@cdc.gov, contact the NSSP Service Desk, join a CoP Subcommittee call, or join and share info via the CoP Slack® channel.

Publication Updates