Overview
Our data surveillance system services and data quality validation tools help public health agencies limit the spread of infectious disease and foodborne illness. We do this by helping states and jurisdictions accurately and comprehensively capture and share information about disease outbreaks between health care providers and public health agencies.
Our Approach
We partnered with epidemiologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and clinicians to design and develop a monitoring system for the state of Michigan that provides public health officials with the ability to access a rich set of case investigation data in a common format; generate over a dozen reports with the data, including visualizations; and export the data to standardized analytical software tools to perform epidemiological studies. Additionally, we created a validation tool to continuously monitor the incoming data from health care providers to ensure patient information is reported accurately and completely.
Results
The system we created, the Michigan Disease Surveillance System (MDSS), was specifically designed to receive laboratory reports for confirmed cases of infectious diseases. Laboratory reports make it possible for public health officials to identify and respond to outbreaks quickly. It has been central to Michigan’s coronavirus response. The system is processing and validating 40,000 laboratory reports a day. MDSS electronic laboratory reporting capabilities has allowed Michigan to be ranked a top state in making coronavirus data available.
Contact Us
Lakshmi Atluri - MS
Director, Disease Surveillance
Areas of Expertise- Disease Surveillance
- Public Health Informatics
- Software Development
For over 12 years, Lakshmi Atluri has focused on public health informatics in various roles at Altarum, from software engineer to technical leader to her current role as director of the Center for Disease Surveillance. Lakshmi has overseen the successful deployment of a variety of applications for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and currently manages new module development and maintenance of disease, outbreak, and other public health surveillance and reporting systems. Lakshmi holds a master's degree in information systems from Eastern Michigan University.
Greg Matthews
Deputy Director, Disease Surveillance
Areas of Expertise- Analytics and Data Visualization
- Applied Research and Evaluation
- Disease Surveillance
Greg leads programs in health information technology and data analytics. As an expert in statistical science and data visualization, Greg supports public health programs by quantifying program performance and delivering actionable insights. He holds a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Washington.