The department used free software called SaTScan to develop a system that monitors disease reports throughout the city. Healthcare laboratories submit about 1,000 reports on confirmed disease diagnoses each day, according to FiveThirtyEight, which the software is able to map within the city’s census tracts, based on where and when the diagnosis was reported. If the system identifies enough diagnoses in a small area over a short amount of time, it will distribute an alert.
“It is just not possible to effectively monitor every communicable disease in real time with human eyes alone,” Sharon Greene, director of the data analysis unit at the city’s Bureau of Communicable Disease, told FiveThirtyEight. “To be able to quickly and effectively and precisely detect an outbreak, to kick off an outbreak investigation process — the earlier that you can begin this it helps to limit sickness, it helps to limit death and it makes it more likely that you will successfully solve the outbreak.”
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