Syndromic Surveillance (SyS)

What is syndromic surveillance?

Syndromic surveillance (SyS) is a means of public health data collection to monitor potential health trends in near real-time through symptom monitoring before an official diagnosis can be made. Some examples of syndromic surveillance data include medical record data associated with emergency department visits and EMS data. South Dakota Department of Health utilizes emergency department data and clinical encounter data from health care organization ADT (admit discharge transfer) feeds to monitor health trends across the state.

Benefits of SyS:

• Allows for near real-time monitoring
• Allows for monitoring of health outcomes (e.g., increasing visits due to diarrhea that may be linked with a food item) around events, such as the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Get Started with SyS:

1. Verify Syndromic Data requirements are met in accordance with the published HL7 message standard.
2. Complete the SS registration form to notify SDDOH and Health Link that your organization is ready to onboard SyS reporting.
3. Contact SDDOH if you have any questions. Please email DOH.Informatics@state.sd.us.

Additional Resources:

• CDC SyS Information
• HL7 Standards
• Required SyS Data Elements
• National Syndromic Surveillance Program
• National Library of Medicine