Perceived usefulness of a distributed community-based syndromic surveillance system: a pilot qualitative evaluation study

Blaine Reeder,William B Lober,Debra Revere,Donald R Olson

doi:10.1186/1756-0500-4-187

Abstract

BackgroundWe conducted a pilot utility evaluation and information needs assessment of the Distribute Project at the 2010 Washington State Public Health Association (WSPHA) Joint Conference. Distribute is a distributed community-based syndromic surveillance system and network for detection of influenza-like illness (ILI). Using qualitative methods, we assessed the perceived usefulness of the Distribute system and explored areas for improvement. Nine state and local public health professionals participated in a focus group (n = 6) and in semi-structured interviews (n = 3). Field notes were taken, summarized and analyzed.FindingsSeveral emergent themes that contribute to the perceived usefulness of system data and the Distribute system were identified: 1) Standardization: a common ILI syndrome definition; 2) Regional Comparability: views that support county-by-county comparisons of syndromic surveillance data; 3) Completeness: complete data for all expected data at a given time; 4) Coverage: data coverage of all jurisdictions in WA state; 5) Context: metadata incorporated into the views to provide context for graphed data; 6) Trusted Data: verification that information is valid and timely; and 7) Customization: the ability to customize views as necessary. As a result of the focus group, a new county level health jurisdiction expressed interest in contributing data to the Distribute system.ConclusionThe resulting themes from this study can be used to guide future information design efforts for the Distribute system and other syndromic surveillance systems. In addition, this study demonstrates the benefits of conducting a low cost, qualitative evaluation at a professional conference.

Highlights

Distribute is a community-based, population-level public health information system for syndromic influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance that displays aggregated, deidentified, public health surveillance data collected from emergency departments (EDs) by state and local health jurisdictions [1]
The roots of automated syndromic surveillance systems began just prior to the 2001 Anthrax attacks [3] with systems which automatically classify clinic visits and other data according to loose “syndromic” criteria and present graphic and statistical views of summarized data based on counts of those visits, and their numbers in proportion to population and denominators derived from utilization of health care services
Many international standards for system design conflate usability and utility, incorporating aspects of utility and usability in a single definition [13]. Because this project is not an interaction study, we focus on the utility, or perceived usefulness, of the Distribute system and its data outputs while acknowledging that usability contributes to utility

Summary

Introduction

Distribute is a community-based, population-level public health information system for syndromic influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance that displays aggregated, deidentified, public health surveillance data collected from emergency departments (EDs) by state and local health jurisdictions [1]. The roots of automated syndromic surveillance systems began just prior to the 2001 Anthrax attacks [3] with systems which automatically classify clinic visits and other data according to loose “syndromic” criteria and present graphic and statistical views of summarized data based on counts of those visits, and their numbers in proportion to population and denominators derived from utilization of health care services. The literature describes both the early experience and growth of these systems [4] and their evolving design and implementation [5].

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Results

Conclusion