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Epidemiology Department
921 E. Third Street. The purpose of the Epidemiology (Epi) Department is to prevent the occurrence and spread of disease in Hamilton County. This is accomplished through many activities including community education, data gathering and analysis, disease investigations, surveillance of disease syndromes, and reporting disease information to the Tennessee Department of Health. Hospitals, laboratories, physician offices, and clinics are required by Tennessee state law to report notifiable diseases to the health department. Click here to access the Tennessee Notifiable Disease List and the required written report form. Reports of a communicable disease can be mailed, faxed, or called to the Epi Department. Diseases that require immediate telephone reporting can be called to the above number at any time. Instructions for reaching staff on-call after hours are available at 423-209-8010. Reports of tuberculosis should be called to 423-209-8030 and reports of sexually transmitted diseases should be called to 423-209-8266. When a report of a notifiable disease is received by the health department a nurse in the Epi department interviews the patient or family member to determine possible causes and risk factors associated with the disease. The goal of gathering this data and doing follow-up investigations on certain diseases is to prevent disease spread in the community. In addition the monitoring of data from a variety of other sources will assist the health department in the rapid detection of a potential disease outbreak or health threat. Education is an important component of disease prevention. Information on specific diseases can be found at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website www.cdc.gov. In addition the Epi dept has developed fact sheets that can be printed and used for patient education.
JANUARY EPIDEMIOLOGY NEWSLETTER Epidemiology Department Staff: Margaret Zylstra, B.S.N., Epidemiology Nurse Manager Marie Stoudemire, R.N., Epidemiology Nurse mstoudemire@mail.hamiltontn.gov Bev Fulbright, R.N., Epidemiology Nurse Meredith Tomblin, M.P.H., Epidemiologist Sarah Cox, M.P.H., Epidemiologist Administration
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Community Health
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Case Management
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