• myAlerts: The myAlerts function allows users to define specific populations, processing algorithms, and conditions to create alert messages that match the criteria. 
• Algorithms: There are several types of alerting algorithms within ESSENCE, including temporal, spatial, time of arrival (TOA), summary, word alerts, and fusion alerts. 

What Can You Really Do with 35,000 Statistical Alerts a Week Anyways?: Conference abstract. Find practical ways to sort through statistical noise in syndromic data and make use of alerts most likely to have public health importance. 

Jurisdictional Usage of the New ESSENCE Word Alert Feature: Describe the new word alert capability in ESSENCE, how it has been used by the Florida Department of Health and how the word alert feature works to find individual chief complaint terms that are occurring at an abnormal rate. 

Analytic Fusion for Essential Indicators of the Opioid Epidemic: In a partnership between the Public Health Division of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), an analytic fusion tool was developed using streaming data and report-based evidence to improve the targeting and timing of evidence-based interventions in the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic. 

Rnssp Package: This R package developed by NSSP facilitates access to data within ESSENCE via a secure and simple interface. A tutorial is available. 

How to Use RStudio with ESSENCE API Guide: An overview of the ESSENCE APIs and how to access them through RStudio. 

NSSP-R User Group Call Archive 

Interacting with Web Data using R: Web APIs and Web Scraping (including RSelenium): Demonstrate working with an API from R to extract information from healthdata.gov. We will also demonstrate scraping static web content using the rvest package, and how to scrape static content by driving a web browser using RSelenium. 

An Introduction to RStudio & R Markdown – Beginner & Intermediate 

Interactive Reporting & Dashboards in R Markdown – Intermediate & Advanced

New Features in R Markdown & HTML Widgets – Intermediate & Advanced

Making Report-Quality Plots in R with Low-to-Moderate Coding Experience: Demonstrate the ‘ggplot2’ package and how to create a plot by looking at the components that make up its overall structure. It will also go into how these graphics can be integrated into RMarkdown to create an automated report that is visually appealing. 

Opioid Overdose Surveillance and Classification with R: The current opioid overdose/addiction crisis in the United States presents a challenge to public health intervention due to a lack of data on current and past incidence. Very little information is known regarding what is happening when/where and in comparison, to the past. Marin County, California is addressing the lack of clarity in opioid overdose data by designing a novel cloud-based system to identify opioid overdoses for both surveillance and outreach purposes using county-owned Emergency Medical Services (EMS) data. 

Leveraging the NSSP R Studio Server to Automate QA Monitoring and Reporting: The aim of this project was to develop a nimble system to both monitor and report on the quality of Kentucky emergency department syndromic surveillance data at system-wide and facility levels. 

Evaluation of Syndromic Surveillance for Opioid Overdose Reporting in Illinois: Evaluate capacity of the BioSense ESSENCE platform and pre-defined overdose queries to identify emergency department admissions related to opioid overdose, in compliance with 2018 mandatory overdose reporting laws in Illinois. 

Tracking suspected heroin overdoses in CDC’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program: This paper analyzes emergency department syndromic data in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Syndromic Surveillance Program’s (NSSP) BioSense Platform to understand trends in suspected heroin overdose. 

Going Beyond Chief Complaints to Identify Opioid-Related Emergency Department Visits: Identify heroin- and opioid-related emergency department visits using pre-diagnostic data and demonstrate the value of clinical notes to public health surveillance and situational awareness. 

Development of Text-Based Algorithm for Opioid Overdose Identification in EMS Data: Explore the results of a descriptive analysis of all drug overdose mortality data  collected by  the  Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office and how that data can be used to inform public health action. 

Data Sharing Through Dashboards: The Who, What, Where, When, and Why: Lightning talk webinar experience where you will see multiple examples of data dashboards and learn more about who they were created for, how they were developed, where and when the data is being shared, and what impact the dashboard has had on improving public health practice as presenters discuss their work on opioid, flu, and general disease surveillance dashboards. 

Turning the Tide on the Opioid Epidemic: Arizona Department of Health Services (AZDHS) created an interactive dashboard that advances their mission in empowering citizen action, increasing transparency, and equipping decision makers to begin to turn the tide of the opioid epidemic. 

Finding Chances to Intervene Before the Fatal Overdose: Linking ED and Mortality Data: Link emergency department (ED) with death certificate mortality data in order to examine the prior medical history of opioid overdose victims leading up to their death. 

Opioid Surveillance Webinar Series #1: Rapid surveillance of overdose morbidity – Developing case definitions, building queries, and analyzing results: Describes how CDC has partnered with states to develop case definitions for all drug, opioid, and heroin within and outside of the NSSP/ESSENCE system, and lessons learned and things to consider for the rapid surveillance of opioid overdose. 

Opioid Surveillance Webinar Series #2: Challenges and Implications of Postmarketing Surveillance of Prescription Opioids: Addresses the unique challenges of surveillance or prescription opioid abuse and presents data from multiple perspectives on the issues and potential solution. 

Opioid Surveillance Webinar Series #3: Syndromic Surveillance Case Definition for Monitoring Opioid Related ED visits and Drug Overdose Surveillance Using Death Record, Poison Control, and ED Data: Collaboration work together to develop a standard case definition for opioid abuse/poisoning, applicable in multiple jurisdictions. The pilot study evaluated the opioid abuse/poisoning case definition by determining the consistency of the reported Chief Complaint and Discharge Diagnosis (CC and DD) in SyS ED data. 

Opioid Crisis Trending Topic in the NSSP Knowledge Repository