Public Health ICT Based Surveillance System

The Public Health Surveillance System (PHSS) is defined as the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of health-related data essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice. It serves as an early warning system, guides public health policy and strategies, documents the impact of an intervention or progress towards specified public health targets/goals, and understands and monitors the epidemiology of a condition to set priorities and guide public health policy and strategies. For this purpose, the PHSS should: be ICT-based and comprehensive with clearly defined sources, volumes, and standards of data; include all the stakeholders with information they produce, with enough flexibility in the dynamic of constructing indicators; be safe and able to produce information on demand and on time; and be able to act as a risk management system by providing warnings/reminders/alerts to prevent unwanted events.