Technical Updates
Updated December 4, 2023
Patching Schedule
- November 28: NSSP vendor patches (Testing and Development) 12:00–8:00AM ET (Completed)
- November 30: NSSP vendor patches (Onboarding and Production) 12:00–8:00 AM ET (Completed)
- December 19: NSSP vendor patches (Testing and Development) 12:00–8:00 AM ET
- December 21: NSSP vendor patches (Onboarding and Production) 12:00–8:00 AM ET
CDC Improvements to Website Are Underway
CDC strives to be a response-ready agency with easy-to-access information. As part of CDC Moving Forward—an agencywide effort to transform operations—CDC is modernizing the structure and functionality of its website. CDC launched Clean Slate to overhaul the CDC.gov website and streamline content by more than 60% so that people will be better able to find the information they’re looking for.1 The relaunch of CDC.gov is expected to occur before spring 2024.
During this time, you may start noticing changes as NSSP and agency staff assess the utility of web content. Some content might go away; some might move around. All content will be updated to streamline access and eliminate redundancy.
YOU are our primary technical audience. Your access to technical resources will always be our top priority. Throughout our content improvements, you might see a shift in the location of information to the Community of Practice’s Knowledge Repository or to CDC’s Stacks publication repository. We’ll do our best to inform you of changes as they happen. Here are the recent changes:
- Early November 2023, the word clouds were removed and archived.
- Early November 2023, the webpage on Syndrome Definitions was removed and archived. Syndrome factsheets are posted in the Knowledge Repository Syndrome Library and are accessible by category (i.e., injury, emergency preparedness) and by submitting organization.
- Newsletters for years 2018 through August 2023 were archived. Some articles will be extracted from newsletters and added to our NSSP website in a temporary, but searchable location.
If you have suggestions related to content, please contact nssp@cdc.gov. Your input will be forwarded to the communication team.
What’s a NIDD?
“NIDD” is like NICC, which means Non-Informative Chief Complaint. However, NIDD refers to Discharge Diagnoses that are non-informative. Any non-informative term may have a non-null value, but the value itself may add negligible, if any, value to syndromic surveillance. For example, if either a Chief Complaint or Discharge Diagnosis value is “unknown,” it is not informative.
When we started using ESSENCE to analyze diagnosis data, we informally began using the term “NIDD” to describe Non-Informative Discharge Diagnosis.
You can see how NIDD is used in practice by reading “The Case of the Disappearing Diagnosis.”
More Resources
Mortality Data
Here’s a refresher on how mortality data are processed. Mortality data are received in the standard Inter-Jurisdictional Exchange (IJE) electronic file format defined by the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) IJE Committee. Jurisdictions can query Cause of Death codes. They can also query the Literal Cause of Death, a text field that provides the first indication of cause of death, which is like querying a chief complaint field in emergency department data. The Literal Cause of Death field is often received before the final ICD-10 codes, providing early insight and opportunity for timely analysis and response. Practitioners whose public health jurisdictions include mortality data in NSSP–ESSENCE will be able to integrate and enhance their all-hazards surveillance activities with illness, injury, and other health-related data when they respond to public health threats and events.
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
The NSSP onboarding team continues to work with site, facility, and vendor staff to bring new data onto the BioSense Platform.
- Since January 1, 2023, NSSP has onboarded 134 new emergency department (ED) facilities into Production. During the same period, we’ve added 308 new facilities of varying types. Facility participation is 78%.
- The next Data Validation Call has been moved to December 13, 2023, to avoid conflict with the 2023 Syndromic Surveillance Symposium scheduled for December 5–7, 2023.
Questions about onboarding, re-onboarding, or data quality? Every other month the onboarding team hosts the BioSense Platform Data Validation Call to focus on topics that are important to you. To join the next call, or to discuss any onboarding concerns, please email the NSSP mailbox (nssp@cdc.gov) or create an NSSP Service Desk ticket.
BioSense Platform
Data Validation Call:
December 13, 2023, 3:00–4:00 PM ET
To receive an invite, select “Onboarding Communications” in your AMC User Profile, or email a request to nssp@cdc.gov.
By the Numbers
The NSSP onboarding team continues to work with site, facility, and vendor staff to bring new facility data onto the BioSense Platform. As part of NSSP, you’re privy to an unmatched amount of emergency department data to analyze—from trends in RSV, influenza, and infectious disease to cold-related illness.
- More than 6,500 health care facilities covering 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam contribute data to NSSP daily.
- Within 24 hours of a patient’s visit, data are available in NSSP for analysis.
- 78% of U.S. emergency departments send data to NSSP, often within 24 hours.
- More than 8 million electronic health messages are received by NSSP every day.
Some people see the word “misclassification” and assume there’s a technical error in processing data. But that’s only one way in which data get misclassified, and it’s the least likely explanation.
Misclassification can be introduced during data entry, processing, interpretation, or analysis. Misclassification of race, for example, can be introduced during data collection. Assumptions can be made. Bias can be introduced.
Although data processing rules are applied consistently, poorly written rules may result in misclassification. By following standards for sending, receiving, and processing data, public health jurisdictions, healthcare facilities and electronic health record vendors reduce the likelihood of errors.
Analysts and epidemiologists in public health jurisdictions work closely with CDC’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) to rigorously check data quality.
