In September 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an exciting new development – over $262 million in funding has been allocated for the creation of a groundbreaking national network known as the Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network.
The mission? According to the agency, it is to “support state and local decision-makers in developing and implementing new tools to detect, respond to, and mitigate public health emergencies with more effectiveness.”
A variety of more than a dozen public and private organizations have been selected to lead this initiative, with leading universities and health organizations among them.
These organizations have been categorized as innovators, integrators, and implementers, with each group focused on developing, testing, and implementing emergency response tools and technologies, respectively.
Most recently, the network was launched under the name Insight Net, with the purpose of giving public healthcare decision-makers the ability to “better understand the trajectory of the next outbreak, make informed decisions, and take action during outbreak responses,” according to the CDC. It also aims to assists members of the public in making informed decisions to protect their communities, families, and themselves during public health emergencies.
We had the opportunity to talk to Dylan George, director of the CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, about the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, how this new effort is designed to help mitigate and respond to other public health emergencies, and the value of advanced analytics in powering biosurveillance, among other topics.
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Talking points:
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Why CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics was formed in response to the pandemic.
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The analytics tools and technologies it uses to model disease outbreaks.
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National Network for Outbreak Response and Disease Modeling and InsightNet.
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Why a state and local focus is so important.
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What the network’s academic and university members are tasked with.
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How AI is involved, and at what level.
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What’s next for the network, and what it hopes to accomplish.
More about this episode:
Perspective on improving CDC’s data exchange capabilities
In the era of public health threats, CDC modernization is a race against the clock
Leidos partners with Accenture to deliver CDC cloud modernization
ONC, CDC want to fix the fragmented public health system COVID-19 exposed
CDC awards $9M for long COVID data system
Hospitals to resume sending COVID-19 data to CDC
CDC official on hospital pandemic surveillance: ‘Minimize manual processes’