Paladin Data Receives $1.8M to Expand Bio-Terrorism Detection Program.

POULSBO, Wash. -- Paladin Data Systems announced today that it has been awarded a $1.8 million contract from the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command to conduct additional research and expand the Outbreak Detection Information Network (ODIN).

ODIN, a wide-area monitoring program that, when complete, will detect near-real-time trends in healthcare treatment and diagnosis, is a joint research and development project of Paladin Data Systems, the Foundation for Quality Health Care, the Department of Defense, University of Washington, the Washington State Department of Health, and the public health departments of Kitsap County, Tacoma/Pierce County, and Seattle/King County. The original goal of the ODIN project was to provide early detection of bio-terrorism events.

"This technology has the potential to greatly improve our response times to a bio-terrorism act," said ODIN project principal investigator, Dr. Peter Dunbar of the Foundation for Quality Healthcare. "It also offers the capability to better monitor and track normal health events across communities, such as flu, food poisoning, SARS, and other types of outbreaks."

The ODIN system has been under development for the past year in the Puget Sound region, and the additional funding will expand the system to cover more of Washington state, and integrate additional sources of information into the system, such as over-the-counter drug sales and 911 aid calls.

"We've been able to expand on Senator Patty Murray's initial vision of a system that merged the public and Department of Defense health monitoring into a common view," said Gary Macy, Paladin ODIN project leader, "by creating an integrated system that provides enhanced functionality and data interchange to users across geographic and organizational boundaries, without adding significantly to the overall cost of the system."

"The ODIN project will serve to create a statewide Syndromic Surveillance system," stated Dr. Dunbar. "ODIN has the potential to make health data sharing between health care systems possible, providing a huge opportunity to increase patient safety for all Washington residents. I believe that we have the potential to create a significant positive impact on the health care infrastructure of not only the state, but the nation."

Paladin Data Systems Corporation is a privately owned software engineering solutions firm headquartered in Poulsbo, Washington. Paladin offers a number of services to both public and private sector clients throughout the United States and Canada, including Paladin's signature software products, custom software engineering, and technology training. Paladin partners with its customers to deliver custom business solutions, providing end-to-end data-driven consulting, strategic technology planning, remote database administration, and Microsoft educational training and certification. For more information about Paladin, contact 360-779-2400, or visit www.paladindata.com.