Comparison of System Characteristics
| System | Geography/ Population | Setting/ Data Sources | Data Transmission Standards | Data Update Frequency | Data Collection Technique | Security Protocol | Funding |
| Bergen County, New Jersey | County; 5 hospitals | ED | Text | Daily | Fax, e-mail, file transfer | — | — |
| Children's Hospital Boston | Metropolitan; 2 hospitals | ED | XML | Daily | Mining agent and reports | SSL | AHRQ |
| Denver Public Health | Metropolitan; 600K, 25% | ED, EMS CAD, nurse advice line | ODBC | Daily (ED hourly) | Electronic from ED text and CAD, ad hoc queries | CDC | |
| Dept. of Defense/GEIS | 14 countries, 395 installations (307 in USA, 88 other) | Military treatment facilities | Column-delineated | Daily | Data mining | Secure FTP vpn | DARPA |
| EI Network23 | 21 Pacific Rim countries | Disease alerts | Text, e-mail | 2 weeks | Voluntary reporting | CDC | |
| Los Alamos/ U. New Mexico | 2 counties, 2 EDs | ED | Http, XML | Voluntary | Reports | SSL | DOE, CDC |
| Regenstrief/Indiana U. | Metropolitan; 11 hospitals, 5 health systems; 1.5M, 95% | ED, hospital, physician groups | HL7 | Real-time | HL7 over secure extranet | NLM AHRQ | |
| Seattle–King County/ U. Washington | 1 county, 3 hospital EDs, 9 PCC; 1.7M, 20% | ED , primary care, EMS CAD | XML | Daily | Mining agent and reports | SSL | CDC |
| U. Pittsburgh | 13 counties, 14 hospitals, 10 EDs; 3M, 20%; 1.3M, 37% | ED hospitals | HL7, ODBC | Real-time | HL7, free-text, processing physician case reporting | SSH | DARPA AHRQ NLM CDC |
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Notes: The surveillance systems are identified by the organization(s) responsible for their development—Bergen County Department of Health Services, New Jersey; Children's Hospital Boston; Denver Public Health Department; Emerging Infectious Diseases Network, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (EINet-APEC); Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine; Public Health–Seattle & King County and University of Washington; University of Pittsburgh.
Abbreviations: AHRQ, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CAD, computer-assisted dispatching; CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; DOE, Department of Energy; ED, emergency department; EMS, emergency medical service; HL7, Health Level 7; NLM, National Library of Medicine; ODBC, Open Database Connectivity; PCC, primary care clinic; SSH, Secure Shell; SSL, Secure Sockets Layer; XML, Extensible Markup Language; vpn, virtual private network.
