Augmenting syndromic surveillance for real-time situational awareness during extreme heat events in Ottawa, Canada

The city of Ottawa has made adaptation to climate change a public health priority. In collaboration with the CEC and HC, OPH seek to improve its understanding of the HRI and its capacity to protect the most vulnerable residents by increasing the sensitivity of the Enviro syndrome and enabling the integration of weather and health outcomes data sources for realtime situational awareness.

To integrate the health outcome data with weather data, a situational awareness tool, the Public Health Information Management System (PHIMS), has been restructured for use by OPH. The new system is called the Ottawa Syndromic Surveillance for Extreme Heat (OSSEH). PHIMS provides a web- and map-based display of both real-time and static data of relevance to emergency management and public health.