Utah will soon be rolling out a statewide system for disease reporting that promises to automate and make the process more transparent. The system, called TriSano™, is an open source project licensed under the Affero GPL. According to TriSano, its name is a composite of two ideas:
Tri is a prefix meaning three. Tri represents the collaboration between local, state and federal entities. It depicts the primary disciplines of public health: epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Tri also refers to the epidemiological triad of people, place, and time.
Sano is an adjective meaning promoting good health.
Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet has more about the project:
CSI corporate development officer Laurie Williams said that TriSano replaces a system of faxes which now must be sent when doctors diagnose specific conditions.
“Reporting now will be a byproduct” of data entry, she said, meaning officials will be able to detect patterns in real time, and respond much more quickly to outbreaks than before.
But this was no easy hack, she noted.
“There are about 75 reportable diseases in the state of Utah,” Williams said. ”Each form is different. Each disease is different. In some cases it’s reported just in the state, in others it might be reported to the CDC.
“The long answer is each report must feel a little different. And whether or not the patient is known differs. So the information that is put in changes, and what’s reported on changes.”
More from the ZDNet Healthcare Blog…
TriSano…; TriSano Wiki…
White paper: Collaborative Software Initiative: A New Model for Open Source Software in Public Health (.pdf)…
