National Animal Health Surveillance System Outlook
Issue 20, December 2008
The NAHSS Outlook is an electronic communication with information about the National Animal Health Surveillance System (NAHSS) that is distributed via email to all members of Veterinary Services. Contact the National Surveillance Unit to provide comments and suggestions for future topics.
Articles in This Issue:
- VS Looks Forward to 2015
- Funding and planning new VS initiatives with ‘Stage-Gate’
- National Reportable Disease List moves forward
- Algorithm aids in monitoring animal health events
Click here for updates on States and VS working jointly on Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) brucellosis plan, surveillance topics at the recent 2008 USAHA meeting, and the 2008 online Animal Health Report.
Veterinary Services’ (VS) leadership is actively engaged in the process of determining what kind of organization VS needs to become by the year 2015. This effort has resulted in a “fact sheet” and a “Q and A” sheet that project a broad view of VS as it is anticipated to be in 2015. These documents do not include a detailed map outlining how to get there; rather, they take the first critical step in describing the scope of the organization’s activities, mode of operation, and its partnerships. This effort is being referred to simply as “VS 2015.” The expertise and core capabilities of VS position the organization not only to meet today's animal health challenges but also to become the national veterinary authority of the United States. To reach this goal, VS management has identified three key changes as essential for the VS organization: Greater emphasis on disease prevention, preparedness, detection, and early response activities; an expanding veterinary health mission to respond to issues impacting animal agriculture and public health concerns connected to animal populations; and an expanding portfolio of interstate and international certification services. Read more here.
Funding and planning new VS initiatives with ‘Stage-Gate’
Stage-Gate is a process for overseeing Veterinary Services’ portfolio of new initiatives as projects move from the idea stage toward successful implementation. VS uses Stage-Gate to critique projects, allocate resources, and plan the launch. Our methods are adapted from private industry’s use of Stage-Gate, in which companies identify their best, most viable new products and services and then methodically prepare them for release to the public. Stage-Gate consists of a series of stages, during which a project team manages and accomplishes its work, followed by gates, where Go/Stop/Modify/Hold decisions determine if a project or new initiative moves to the next stage, ending in launch, when new initiatives are implemented.
Stage-Gate offers a way to capture and document what normally happens as a project advances in stages from an initial idea toward a polished and tested set of plans. VS benefits from using Stage-Gate by directing resources and support to high-priority, well-managed projects that are both strategically and operationally sound. Read more about Stage-Gate here.
Algorithm aids in monitoring animal health events
Protecting the animal population of the United States requires constant monitoring of global disease events and conditions that may lead to disease emergence, both domestically and globally. In order to more effectively identify and assess events of interest from the large volume of events harvested from various sources, CEAH-CEI analysts have developed a text-based algorithm that prioritizes events of interest by focusing on animal health issues that are significant, or in some way unusual, regarding morbidity, mortality, clinical signs, location, or other epidemiological characteristics.Using the algorithm, analysts apply the criteria listed for each priority level to an event and characterize it as high, medium, low, or other. Read more about the algorithm here.
National Reportable Disease List moves forward
Veterinary Services, in conjunction with the United States Animal Health Association and American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, is exploring the development of a United States National List of Reportable Animal Diseases. The list would provide one standardized reportable animal disease list, demonstrating to trading partners and other countries that the United States has a uniform national list of reportable diseases. The reportable disease list also would assist in meeting international reporting obligations and validate the United States’ required international reporting to the World Organization for Animal Health as well as required export certifications. And, creation of the list would improve zoonotic and endemic animal disease reporting in the United States. The current reporting criteria used by the National Animal Health Reporting System (NAHRS) will be used to develop criteria for the reportable disease list. Read more about the list here.