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Emerging Pathogens Initiative (EPI)

Metadata Updated: May 1, 2021

The Emerging Pathogens Initiative (EPI) database contains emerging pathogens information from the local Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs). The EPI software package allows the VA to track emerging pathogens on the national level without additional data entry at the local level. The results from aggregation of data can be shared with the appropriate public health authorities including non-VA and the private health care sector allowing national planning, formulation of intervention strategies, and resource allocations. EPI is designed to automatically collect data on emerging diseases for Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO) to analyze. The data is sent to the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) from all Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) systems for initial processing and combination with related workload data. VACO data retrieval and analysis is then carried out. The AITC creates two file structures both in Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) file format, which are used as a source of data for the Veterans Affairs Headquarters (VAHQ) Infectious Diseases Program Office. These files are manipulated and used for analysis and reporting by the National Infectious Diseases Service. Emerging Pathogens (as characterized by VACO) act as triggers for data acquisition activities in the automated program. The system retrieves relevant, predetermined, patient-specific information in the form of a Health Level Seven (HL7) message that is transmitted to the central data repository at the AITC. Once at that location, the data is converted to a SAS dataset for analysis by the VACO National Infectious Diseases Service. Before data transmission an Emerging Pathogens Verification Report is produced for the local sites to review, verify, and make corrections as needed. After data transmission to the AITC it is added to the EPI database.

Access & Use Information

Non-public: This dataset is not for public access or use. Specific details are provided below. License: Creative Commons CCZero

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
Metadata Updated Date May 1, 2021

Metadata Source

Harvested from VA JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
Metadata Updated Date May 1, 2021
Publisher Department of Veterans Affairs
Maintainer
Identifier VA-VHA-PCS-007
Data First Published 2017-07-26
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2020-12-01
Rights Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, protected health information.
Category Basic Statistics, Use, and Operational Data
Public Access Level non-public
Bureau Code 029:15
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.data.va.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Data Quality True
Harvest Object Id 3bc0c49e-d200-48d9-a910-c6bf591812e0
Harvest Source Id fcd1f625-1c2e-4663-95cf-1b0eb053cce1
Harvest Source Title VA JSON
Homepage URL https://www.data.va.gov/d/39pc-24dr
License https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Program Code 029:041
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 26f78f7f507a1d0a32c0c9de5cf92e9d5821c71d
Source Schema Version 1.1
System of Records https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-05-11/pdf/2012-11487.pdf
Temporal 1998-01-01T05:00:00Z/2014-12-31T05:00:00Z

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