A COMPUTERISED early warning system may soon be monitoring US hospitals for
the first signs of a bioterrorist attack. By raising the alarm quickly, it could
reduce the spread of diseases such as smallpox, say its developers.
Called the Lightweight Epidemiology Advanced Detection and Emergency Response
System, it should spot outbreaks of infectious diseases before doctors are even
aware of a problem, says Brigadier General Klaus Schafer, assistant surgeon
general for medical readiness, science and technology for the US Air Force.
Via a secure Internet connection, LEADERS can securely extract details of
patients鈥� symptoms and lab results from hospital records, regardless of what
software a hospital uses. This means hospital staff won鈥檛 have to do any extra
work, says Schafer. 鈥淣urses don鈥檛 have time to enter stuff into a computer,鈥� he
says.
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For example, a doctor examining a patient with a rash and fever might not
immediately think of smallpox, explains Schafer. But LEADERS would spot if
nearby hospitals had patients with similar symptoms and inform doctors and the
relevant government agencies immediately.
Also, the system will not wait for each case to be diagnosed, says Schafer.
It will learn to recognise symptoms, which can save valuable time. If, for
example, one smallpox case has already been diagnosed in a particular area then
it will assume that any patients with similar symptoms at different hospitals
also have smallpox, long before lab results came back.
Originally developed as part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
project for the US Air Force, the system is already up and running at 79
military hospitals. So far only a couple of dozen civilian hospitals are using
it. But this may change soon, says Brian Jones of the computer company Oracle,
who co-developed the system with Idaho Technology, EYT and ScenPro.
Jones believes it is technically feasible to roll the system out to the US鈥檚
6000 hospitals in just 60 days. LEADERS is easy to set up because the software
runs off a central server accessed via the Net. That means the hospitals don鈥檛
have to install any additional hardware or software.
But persuading hospitals to allow the system to access confidential
information won鈥檛 be easy. 鈥淕etting the hospitals to agree to share their data
is the difficult bit,鈥� Jones admits.