Assessing the use of hospital staff influenza-like absence (ILA) for enhancing hospital preparedness and national surveillance

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Mike Catchpole¹  Richard G Pebody¹  Penny Parker²  Lydia N Drumright³  John Harrison⁴  Simon DW Frost⁵  Mark Atkins⁶  Alison H Holmes⁷  Alex J Elliot⁸ 

[1] Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control, Public Health England, London, UK;Department of Human Resources, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK;Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK;National Centre for Infection Prevention and Management and National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Imperial College London, London, UK;Department of Occupational Health, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK;Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK;Department of Virology, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK;National Centre for Infection Prevention and Management and National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Imperial College London, London, UK;Department of Infection Prevention and Control, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK;Real-time Syndromic Surveillance Team, Public Health England, Birmingham, UK;

关键词: Influenza;    Syndromic surveillance;    Healthcare workers;    Emergency preparedness;    Informatics;    Epidemiology;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12879-015-0789-z

 received in 2014-09-16, accepted in 2015-01-30,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEarly warning and robust estimation of influenza burden are critical to inform hospital preparedness and operational, treatment, and vaccination policies. Methods to enhance influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance are regularly reviewed. We investigated the use of hospital staff ‘influenza-like absences’ (hospital staff-ILA), i.e. absence attributed to colds and influenza, to improve capture of influenza dynamics and provide resilience for hospitals.MethodsNumbers and rates of hospital staff-ILA were compared to regional surveillance data on ILI primary-care presentations (15–64 years) and to counts of laboratory confirmed cases among hospitalised patients from April 2008 to April 2013 inclusive. Analyses were used to determine comparability of the ILI and hospital-ILA and how systems compared in early warning and estimating the burden of disease.ResultsAmong 20,021 reported hospital-ILA and 4661 community ILI cases, correlations in counts were high and consistency in illness measurements was observed. In time series analyses, both hospital-ILA and ILI showed similar timing of the seasonal component. Hospital-ILA data often commenced and peaked earlier than ILI according to a Bayesian prospective alarm algorithm. Hospital-ILA rates were more comparable to model-based estimates of ‘true’ influenza burden than ILI.ConclusionsHospital-ILA appears to have the potential to be a robust, yet simple syndromic surveillance method that could be used to enhance estimates of disease burden and early warning, and assist with local hospital preparedness.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Drumright et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015