AMIA Recommendations for National Health Threat Surveillance and Response

AMIA released recommendations late last year to assist in the fight against national health threats. These recommendations and other collaborative efforts by the AMIA National Health Threats Task Force during the AMIA 2001 Annual Symposium are presented in a special section on Bioterrorism in this issue of JAMIA . This report tracks follow-up developments of the AMIA National Health Threats Task Force, including attendance at key meetings and the development of bioterrorism resources on the AMIA Web site. In addition, key points from the AMIA Primary Care Informatics Working Group (PCIWG) special sessions at the AMIA Annual Symposium, and recommendations developed by the PCIWG, contribute to AMIA's growing involvement in this area. The AMIA Prevention and Public Health Working Group has also been involved, presenting recommendations on information systems for bioterrorism and public health.Throughout this news report the term surveillance is defined as “the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of outcome-specific data for use in the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health practice.”1Members of the AMIA National Health Threats Task Force have attended many important meetings over the past few months with key government, state, and local officials to discuss the needs of the U.S. Health care system, especially in the development and implementation of stronger information technology solutions. AMIA representatives at these meetings included J. Marc Overhage, MD, PhD; W. Edward Hammond, PhD; Michael Wagner, MD, PhD; Luis G. Kun, PhD; William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD; AMIA Executive …