As state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments look for ways to monitor the health of their communities even more comprehensively, InductiveHealth is proud to announce that ESSENCE® is the first syndromic surveillance platform in the country to incorporate detailed wastewater data into the system.
Already, ESSENCE allows public health departments to collect timely datasets not available with other solutions, including emergency department, urgent care, inpatient, hospital discharge, air quality, weather, death, reportable conditions, school absentee, EMS, poison control, over-the-counter drug sales, ASPR, DMAT, lab, hospital bed availability and more.
So why is wastewater monitoring such a powerful tool that complements this rich array of data? In short, it helps epidemiologists get a more complete picture of their community’s health – and more effectively plan timely interventions to stop emerging threats from becoming full-blown crises.
Consider two of the most concerning issues that local health departments are closely monitoring: respiratory viruses and drug overdoses. When reviewing syndromic emergency department data, having the ability to incorporate information from wastewater tracking can paint a more comprehensive picture about the exact virus types and strains that are circulating in the area, a vital indicator that helps public health departments stay one step ahead of the spread, inform the public, and provide guidance to community stakeholders such as hospitals to help them make better resource and staffing decisions.
Similarly, monitoring drug use trends at the community level can help public health officials tailor messaging and outreach to specific populations including information about substance abuse risks and drug treatment and strengthening drug overdose prevention efforts—ideally before a cluster of overdoses occurs.
In short, integrating wastewater surveillance into ESSENCE can help your department stay up to date with the latest data and identify unusual illness patterns or behavioral trends, giving you the ability to respond swiftly to public health emergencies.
We look forward to sharing more about this powerful new capability that only ESSENCE can provide. If you would like to learn more, please reach out to us.