About Us
North Carolina Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NC EDSS)
NC EDSS, the North Carolina Electronic Disease Surveillance System, is a component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiative to move states to web-based health surveillance and reporting systems. NC EDSS is also part of the Public Health Information Network (PHIN). The electronic system replaced a patchwork of smaller disease-specific surveillance systems and paper-based reporting.
NC EDSS is used by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, the state's 86 local and multi-county district health departments (LHDs), and eight HIV/STD Regional Offices. Laboratories also report electronically to NC EDSS.
NC EDSS:
- Provides a single, secure, integrated system and set of procedures for all communicable disease and vaccine-preventable disease reporting.
- Provides LHDs ready access to their data.
- Increases data sharing among LHDs.
- Has statewide outbreak management and contact tracing capability.
- Provides better tracking of lab results and stores lab data with case data.
- Creates a centralized repository of person-based public health data.
- Makes it possible to analyze morbidity patterns across diseases.
- Can track co-morbidity of specific patients (e.g., HIV/TB, syphilis/hepatitis B) to provide better disease control.
- Provides disease mapping tools for LHDs (GIS, or Geographic Information Systems).
- Provides LHDs access to historical disease data (+/- 15 yrs).
