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Sharing EMS data available in NC DETECT with non-NC DETECT Users

ESO maintains the North Carolina (NC) EMS Data System under the authority of the NC Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health Services Regulation, Office of Emergency Medical Services (NC OEMS). NC OEMS has approved the transmission of EMS data from the NC EMS Data System to NC DETECT for public health surveillance purposes.

Please keep confidentiality in mind when sharing EMS data from NC DETECT with partners outside of the health department. Line listing information should not be shared. Please follow these guidelines:

  1. Counts >=5 do not need to be suppressed for any time period or stratification; e.g. age group, sex, race, etc.
  2. When counts are <5:
    1. You may share annual counts for a given indicator by county, with no suppression needed. For example, you may share the number of opioid overdoses in a county by year, even if the annual count is <5.
    2. Counts <5 for a county or region in a time period under one year may be released in graphs or tables when at least 500 EMS encounters occurred in the county or region during that time period. If fewer than 500 EMS encounters occurred, counts from 1-4 must be suppressed in publicly available documents or handouts that are given to meeting participants; in these cases, please use “<5” to indicate counts less than 5 and 0 to indicate counts of zero.
    3. Counts <5 for a stratification such as age group, race, sex, etc. for any time period (either a year or less than a year) may be released in graphs or tables when at least 500 EMS encounters occurred within that stratification during the time period being reported. However, if fewer than 500 EMS encounters occurred, counts from 1-4 must be suppressed in publicly available documents or handouts that are given to meeting participants; in these cases, please use “<5” to indicate counts less than 5 and 0 to indicate counts of zero.
  3. At all times, please attribute the data using the following disclaimer:

The NC OEMS and the NC EMS Data System support state, regional and local EMS and healthcare related service delivery from a patient care, resource allocation, and regulatory perspective. This data analysis was not prepared in collaboration with investigators of the NC EMS Data System and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the NC OEMS, ESO or the study sites participating in the NC EMS Data System.

 

Please contact ncdetect@listserv.med.unc.edu with any questions regarding this policy.