An Implementation Strategy to Develop Sustainable Surveillance Activities Through Adoption of a Target Operating Model.

The increasing threat of emerging and re-emerging pathogens calls for a shared vision toward developing and maintaining global surveillance mechanisms to enable rapid characterization of pathogens, a foundational requirement for effective outbreak response. Efforts establishing new surveillance programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have repeatedly led to siloed systems that prove unsustainable or ineffective due to narrowly focused approaches, competing priorities, or lack of resourcing. Barriers inherent to LMICs, such as resource limitations, workforce strain, unreliable supply chains, and lack of enduring champions exacerbate implementation and sustainability challenges. In order to improve adoption and endurance of new surveillance programs, more effective design and implementation of programs is needed to adequately reflect stakeholder needs and simultaneously support population-level disease monitoring and clinical decision-making across a range of chronic and acute health issues. At the heart of this cross-sectorial integration between clinical care and public health initiatives are emerging technologies and data modalities, including sequencing data. In this prospective, we propose an implementation strategy for genomics-based surveillance initiatives in LMICs founded on the use of a target operating model. Adoption of a target operating model for the design and implementation of genomic surveillance programs will ensure programs are agile, relevant, and unified across diverse stakeholder communities, thereby increasing their overall impact and sustainability.

SAGES: a suite of freely-available software tools for electronic disease surveillance in resource-limited settings.

Public health surveillance is undergoing a revolution driven by advances in the field of information technology. Many countries have experienced vast improvements in the collection, ingestion, analysis, visualization, and dissemination of public health data. Resource-limited countries have lagged behind due to challenges in information technology infrastructure, public health resources, and the costs of proprietary software. The Suite for Automated Global Electronic bioSurveillance (SAGES) is a collection of modular, flexible, freely-available software tools for electronic disease surveillance in resource-limited settings. One or more SAGES tools may be used in concert with existing surveillance applications or the SAGES tools may be used en masse for an end-to-end biosurveillance capability. This flexibility allows for the development of an inexpensive, customized, and sustainable disease surveillance system. The ability to rapidly assess anomalous disease activity may lead to more efficient use of limited resources and better compliance with World Health Organization International Health Regulations.