The purpose of syndromic surveillance is to garner early insights into health-related data to detect atypical trends in the community. Syndromic surveillance helps to accomplish this by detecting changes in disease patterns and occurrence, by monitoring the burden of illness/injuries and adverse health events, and by characterizing risk factors. By tracking symptomology data from patients in emergency departments or other settings, public health entities can detect unusual levels of illness and respond in a timely manner – all before diagnostic confirmation.

The basic steps of how syndromic surveillance works are as follows:

1. A patient goes to an emergency department.
2. The patient’s information is captured in the facility’s electronic health record (EHR).
3. Selected elements of the EHR are sent to the syndromic surveillance system.
4. The information is analyzed by the system for trends and abnormalities and the system creates alerts for aberrations in the data.
5. The information is available for public health entities to conduct additional analysis.

1. Implement, configure, and test the information technology (IT) infrastructure per the TxS2 program requirements. 
2. Develop and execute Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) for data providers to submit data to the TxS2 program and for Local Health Departments (LHDs) and data providers to access the programmatic data. 
3. Conduct user training for data providers, LHDs and DSHS. 
4. Onboard data providers that have emergency departments, urgent care centers, free-standing emergency centers, and an EHRs to achieve ongoing data submission to the TxS2 program. 
5. Monitor data submission to the TxS2 program to ensure stable connectivity and receipt of syndromic data sources. 

Monitor usage of the programmatic data by data providers, LHDs, and DSHS to improve and increase workforce capacity in syndromic surveillance. To learn more about syndromic surveillance and its uses, see: MMWR: Overview of Syndromic Surveillance: What is Syndromic Surveillance?