Visualizing and Monitoring Data in BioSense Using SaTScan

Background BioSense data includes Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs ambulatory care diagnoses and procedures, as well as Laboratory Corporation of America lab test orders. Data are mapped to eleven syndrome categories [1]. SaTScan is a spatiotemporal technique that has previously been applied to surveillance at the metropolitan area level [2,3]. Visualization of national results involves unique issues, including displaying cluster information that crosses jurisdictions, zip codes with highly variant data volume, and evaluating large multiple state clusters. SaTScan was first implemented in June 2005 in the BioSense application for daily monitoring at CDC’s BioIntelligence Center (BIC).