*If you have questions about the NSSP CoP, its highly collaborative user groups, the NSSP CoP Slack Workspace (a collaboration platform), or syndromic surveillance, please email syndromic@cste.org.

NSSP CoP Monthly Meeting

The National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) Community of Practice (CoP) held its monthly meeting on April 27, 2022. On average, 100 to 120 people participate in these meetings. Recordings for the monthly CoP calls are posted in the Knowledge Repositoryexternal icon, and the presentationsexternal icon can be directly accessed:

1. AMC Enhancements (Karl Soetebier, CDC NSSP),
2. STLT Toolkit: Behavioral Health Surveillance During Public Health Emergencies (Dr. Laura Faherty, RAND Corporation), and
3. Using Syndromic Surveillance to Find Hepatitis Cases (Ramona Lall and Don Weiss, NYC).

NSSP Updates

• Loren Rodgers has accepted a new position at CDC, and Karl Soetebier will continue as acting NSSP lead. Congratulations to Loren on his new position, and we look forward to continued work with Karl!
• The NSSP team continues to improve upon the BioSense Platform tools. Efforts to improve the Access & Management Center are ongoing. Further, the team is making improvements to the Data Quality Dashboard. NSSP is also wrapping up an engagement with MITRE that extends the work of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and members of the CoP from last summer and fall around new data sources. MITRE developed profiles for the identified data sources to help inform NSSP of what might be needed to use these data sources on the platform. For details, see the presentationexternal icon.
• NSSP improved the limited details dataset. As a reminder, last summer NSSP informed the NSSP CoP that Race and Ethnicity fields would be added to the limited details dataset. NSSP is now ready to implement this improvement. In addition, some ICD chapters and Clinical Classifications Software Refined (CCSR) variables will be added as they are derived from the diagnoses that are already a part of limited details. Lastly, NSSP proposes to add Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) filters along with “National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Urban Rural—Patient Region” and “NCHS Urban Rural—Facility Region.”
• During the upcoming Syndrome Definition Subcommittee call, NSSP will update the community on its plan to address the list of requested changes to the ESSENCE Chief Complaint Processor. Picking up on work done by the NSSP CoP and the technical committee, NSSP team members will share their evaluation of the first batch of changes to the processing of chief complaint text and then give the community 45 days to ask questions and raise concerns. A dedicated Slack channel will be created to provide a place for feedback and discussion about the Chief Complaint Processor changes.
• REMINDER: Due to the CSTE 2022 Annual Conference, a NSSP Community of Practice monthly meeting will not be held in June. The next CoP meeting is currently scheduled for July 27 at 12:00 PM ET.

Reminders and Announcements

• Core Committee Deputy Chair Election—The results are in! A special election for the NSSP CoP Core Committee Deputy Chair position was held in April 2022. Anna Frick (AK) was selected to serve in this interim position through July 2022. Elections for chair and deputy chair will be held later this summer.
• The Knowledge Repositoryexternal icon (KR) is getting an overhaul. The KR is a popular feature on the NSSP CoP website. The KR contains NSSP CoP call recordings; syndrome library; and resources on data analytics, data sharing, and more. CSTE developers are enhancing the search features and user interface with plans to complete the effort later this summer.
• Syndromic Surveillance Training Series Coming Summer 2022! The NSSP and CSTE teams are working with Kahuina Consulting to develop syndromic surveillance curriculum-based training for novice to advanced learners. The NSSP is much more than a platform for conducting syndromic surveillance. It offers dynamic, interactive tools that can improve our understanding of epidemiologic trends and patterns across a variety of public health conditions.
  • The training series will build knowledge and skills across the data-to-action continuum, include hands-on work, and be available on-demand.
  • The series will build the participant’s ability to describe where data come from, assess quality, apply these data to a range of public health domains and foci, and interpret data for decision making.
• Technical Subcommittee Now a Workgroup
  • The NSSP CoP Technical Subcommittee now functions as the Technical Workgroup. Members continue to meet monthly, and the work continues as previously.
  • Workgroup members have requested to update the enhancement list based on the JIRA tickets submitted during COVID. The results will be shared with the broader community.
  • Workgroup minutes are posted in the #technical Slack channel.
• The R User Group moved to a monthly call cadence beginning April 2022. The group now meets the second Tuesday of each month at 2:00 PM ET.

Join the NSSP CoP Slack Workspace

It’s easy to join.external icon And the community is always exchanging ideas, exploring possibilities, and discussing topics relevant to today’s surveillance challenges.

So what are your colleagues discussing?

• #chief-complaint-processing
• #covid19
• #data-lab
• #data-sharing
• #data-quality
• #drug-overdose-use
• #environmental-health
• #essence-user
• #general
• #hospital-admissions
• #planned-analyses-and-publications
• #national-data-requests-sop
• #nssp-cop
• #race-and-ethnicity
• #random
• #r-user
• #sas-user
• #severe-weather
• #spherr
• #syndrome-definitions
• #training
• #violence-surveillance

Find and Join Channels

1. Hover cursor over “Channels” on left side of Slack space.
2. Click the three dots icon that appears next to “Channels” titled “Section Options.”
3. Select “Browse Channels.”
4. Find and join any channel that looks interesting!