I Feel Like Someone’s Watching Me: Syndromic Surveillance Follow-up in North Central Health District
Abstract
Background: Syndromic surveillance is a tool that can be used to identify clusters and cases in almost real time. However, it is a tool that is often underutilized. For many alerts received, little information is provided and so the ability to follow-up depends on the strength of relationships with partners, especially the hospital systems. Further, the false positivity rate of syndromic alerts can discourage follow-up on all alerts. From 2021-2023, all alerts received by the North Central Health District Epidemiology program were responded to in an effort to determine if there is a worthwhile reward to effort ratio in this level of response.
Methods: A descriptive analysis of NCHD’s syndromic surveillance follow-up activities from 2021-2023 was conducted to determine the number of alerts received, the number of alerts followed up on, the number of reportable diseases identified, number of outbreaks, and the number of other high priority health risks.
Results: As of November 2023, there have been a total of 827 syndromic surveillance alerts since 2021. Of 827, we conducted follow-up on 794. Out of 794 alerts we identified 49 reportable diseases and 6 outbreaks and other high priority health risks. Some limitations we identified with our follow-up response included staff turnover, a focus on COVID response particularly during 2021, and training of staff which all had an impact on our data from year to year. However, our response and our data has improved year to year.
Conclusion: The process of syndromic surveillance follow-up in NCHD led to the identification of cases and outbreaks that would otherwise have gone undetected. Following up on the majority of alerts and utilizing partnerships took considerable effort, however the efforts were worth the reward with the identification of clusters, particularly of high priority diseases.
Key words: syndromic surveillance, epidemiology, outbreak
Keywords
syndromic surveillance, epidemiology, outbreak
I Feel Like Someone’s Watching Me: Syndromic Surveillance Follow-up in North Central Health District
Background: Syndromic surveillance is a tool that can be used to identify clusters and cases in almost real time. However, it is a tool that is often underutilized. For many alerts received, little information is provided and so the ability to follow-up depends on the strength of relationships with partners, especially the hospital systems. Further, the false positivity rate of syndromic alerts can discourage follow-up on all alerts. From 2021-2023, all alerts received by the North Central Health District Epidemiology program were responded to in an effort to determine if there is a worthwhile reward to effort ratio in this level of response.
Methods: A descriptive analysis of NCHD’s syndromic surveillance follow-up activities from 2021-2023 was conducted to determine the number of alerts received, the number of alerts followed up on, the number of reportable diseases identified, number of outbreaks, and the number of other high priority health risks.
Results: As of November 2023, there have been a total of 827 syndromic surveillance alerts since 2021. Of 827, we conducted follow-up on 794. Out of 794 alerts we identified 49 reportable diseases and 6 outbreaks and other high priority health risks. Some limitations we identified with our follow-up response included staff turnover, a focus on COVID response particularly during 2021, and training of staff which all had an impact on our data from year to year. However, our response and our data has improved year to year.
Conclusion: The process of syndromic surveillance follow-up in NCHD led to the identification of cases and outbreaks that would otherwise have gone undetected. Following up on the majority of alerts and utilizing partnerships took considerable effort, however the efforts were worth the reward with the identification of clusters, particularly of high priority diseases.
Key words: syndromic surveillance, epidemiology, outbreak
