An emergency medical services surveillance system: The daily situational awareness tool (DSAT)

Intro: Public health efforts to prepare for and prevent disasters have grown in significance in recent years. As part of public health disaster and emergency preparedness efforts in San Diego County, we developed a daily situational awareness tool (DSAT) that provides a daily snapshot of public health, local hazards, and demand on the emergency medical services system to better prepare for and predict health emergencies.

Methods: Syndromic surveillance, prehospital system stress surveillance, air quality, weather, and heat surveillance databases are combined in one location to provide an overview of the health, available resources, and possible hazards. The DSAT shows the status and the alert level for each of the public health indicators and each has its own summary report detailing current conditions. Together, the current status of these indicators is reported and relayed to the Public Health Officer and the emergency preparedness team daily.

Results: The DSAT provides a current, up-to-date summary of the health and possible threats to the County of San Diego. This information has been used to prepare for and respond to local public health threats, including heat emergencies and influenza epidemics. The use of this tool has expedited our response time to emergencies, protecting the health and livelihood of residents.

Conclusions: Emergency and disaster preparedness are a crucial function of local public health departments. The use of a daily situational awareness tool can help in the anticipation of an emergency and provide local officials with the necessary data to quickly and adequately respond.