Beyond data: How to seamlessly integrate surveillance and emergency response interventions in public health

Objectives

---

This session aims to demonstrate the necessity and benefits of fully integrating disease surveillance with emergency response and control process management. By the end of the session, participants will understand the potential of such integration and learn how to implement it using the open-source SORMAS system.

Themes, topics, and relevance

Detailed and timely information alone does not suffice for effective disease control. While accurate data is essential for decision making, disease control measures, whether preventive or reactive, must also be planned, coordinated, supervised, and evaluated within a continuous business process management system. Over the past decade, numerous digital surveillance tools have emerged, but only a few support the full business process of managing disease control measures, and even fewer truly integrate surveillance with response. This fragmentation often results in delayed detection, slow information flow, and ineffective management of public health emergencies.

Effective disease control cannot be viewed as a process that begins only once a health threat has already become inevitable. Instead, it requires an ongoing cycle of preventive and reactive measures that is driven by, and continuously monitored through, high quality surveillance data. Integrating routine disease surveillance with outbreak response functions is therefore critical, an approach emphasized by the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) framework. Reducing fragmentation further requires adopting a One Health perspective, unifying human, animal, and environmental health indicators within a single surveillance and response ecosystem.

The Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) is an open-source digital platform developed in alignment with the IDSR framework to address these challenges. SORMAS supports routine disease surveillance, early outbreak detection, and coordinated response management, and it is increasingly integrating One Health components. It is used across a range of high-, middle-, and low-income countries to strengthen preparedness and response capacities.

In this session, participants will gain hands on experience using SORMAS for outbreak management, leveraging routine surveillance data and integrating key One Health elements to support a comprehensive, continuous, and effective disease control and response process.

Intended Audience and Expected Participants

---

This session is mainly addressed to public health practitioners, technologists and researchers working in disease surveillance, outbreak management and emergency preparedness.

The minimum number of participants is four, corresponding to each of the different SORMAS roles selected for this exercise (see description below). To ensure the smooth running of the exercise, the maximum number of participants should be 20 (four groups of five people).

Participants do not require previous knowledge on the use of SORMAS. However, if they wish, in advance to the session, they can complete the SORMAS basic course on the SORMAS Academy which is free and self-paced.

Format and schedule

---

The 90-minute tutorial will start with a presentation of the challenge to be addressed followed by the introductions for the tabletop exercise. Instructors will describe the scenario, the roles corresponding to each group, time available for the exercise, and resources available (laptops, phones and mock-up data).

Participants will then be divided into four groups corresponding to different roles in the system (surveillance officer, laboratory technician, clinician and environmental surveillance officer). To enter data into the systems, participants will use a SORMAS server made available by the SORMAS Foundation. The tabletop exercise will be guided all the time by the instructors (one instructor per group), that will include the members of the organizing committee (see previous sections). At the end of the exercise, learnings from the exercise will be discussed and experiences exchanged.

Finally, the tutorial will be closed by summarizing key learnings of the tabletop exercise and recapitulating the objectives presented at the beginning of the session.

The proposed preliminary agenda (including estimated times) is shown on the table below.

Time	Description	Name	Role
10 minutes	Presentation (Challenge and Motivation)	Pilar	Presenter
10 minutes	Introduction of Tabletop Exercise	Emeline	Presenter
45 minutes	Tabletop exercise (work in groups)	Pilar/Emeline/Xavier/Isabelle	Instructor
15 minutes	Discussion	Emeline	Moderator
10 minutes	Closure	Pilar	Presenter

To ensure inclusivity and diversity, the requirements to take part in the session are only basic digital skills and epidemiology knowledge, allowing professionals in both early and advanced career stages to participate. The tabletop scenario will be designed to include a variety of cases of different ages and gender groups and the participant groups will represent different public health professional areas.

Speakers

---

---

---

---