Daily Emergency Department Surveillance System --- Bergen County, New Jersey.

The purpose of the Daily Emergency Department Surveillance System (DEDSS) is to provide consistent, timely, and robust data that can be used to guide public health activities in Bergen County, New Jersey. DEDSS collects data on all emergency department visits in four hospitals in Bergen County and analyzes them for aberrant patterns of disease or single instances of certain diseases or syndromes. The system monitors for clusters of patients with syndromes consistent with the prodrome of a terrorism-related illness (e.g., anthrax or smallpox) or naturally occurring disease (e.g., pandemic influenza or food and waterborne outbreaks). The health department can use these data to track and characterize the temporal and geographic spread of a known outbreak or demonstrate the absence of cases during the same period (e.g., severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS] or anthrax). DEDSS was designed to be flexible and readily adaptable as local, state, or federal surveillance needs evolve.