Abstract
The use of routinely available electronic sources of healthcare data on the spread of influenza has the potential to enhance current surveillance activities. This study aimed to develop a method for identifying influenza-related records from general practitioner(GP) out-of-hours (OOH) services in Ireland. Data from one such service were interrogated for keywords relating to influenza-like illness (ILI) and a proxy measure of influenza activity in the community setting was developed. Comparison of this syndromic surveillance measure with national data on ILI consultation rates demonstrated a statistically significant temporal correlation.In five out of six influenza seasons investigated,peaks in the GP OOH influenza-related calls appeared at least one week ahead of peaks in the national ILI consultation rates. The method described in this paper has been extended to nine OOH services in Ireland (covering 70% of the Irish population) to provide weekly figures on self-reported illness for influenza in the community and its data have been incorporated into the national weekly influenza reports produced by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. These data should provide early warnings of both seasonal and pandemic influenza in Ireland.
Highlights
The recent influenza pandemic reemphasised the need to ensure that a reliable, comprehensive system is in place for influenza surveillance
Data were extracted from the Adastra software system [12] into plain text or comma separated values (CSV) files
The general practitioner (GP) OOH services in Ireland account for substantial healthcare interactions with patients in the community, and details of its activity are routinely recorded on computer
Summary
The recent influenza pandemic reemphasised the need to ensure that a reliable, comprehensive system is in place for influenza surveillance It is worthwhile assessing all available data sources for their potential for detecting influenza. Data from healthcare call centres or ‘telehealth’ data, which log direct interactions of patients with a healthcare service and maintain records of patients’ symptoms at particular points in time, have in recent years become a source of information for syndromic surveillance Systems such as NHS Direct in the United Kingdom [1,2,3,4,5], the Ontario Telehealth System in Canada [6,7] and Melbourne Medical Deputising Service in Australia [8] have been used successfully to monitor trends in ILI
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