Outpatient physician billing data for age and setting specific syndromic surveillance of influenza-like illnesses.
Syndromic surveillance is a novel automated approach to monitoring influenza activity, but there is no consensus regarding the most informative data sources for use within such a system. By comparing physician billing data from Quebec, Canada and hospital admission records, we assessed the timeliness of medical visits for influenza-like illnesses (ILI) to two types of outpatient healthcare settings. Overall, ILI visits by children aged 5-17 years at community-based settings were the most strongly correlated with hospital admissions and gave the greatest lead over hospital admissions. However, a degree of year-to-year variation suggests that syndromic surveillance of influenza should not focus on just a single subgroup. These findings reveal the richness of these real-time data for epidemic monitoring and demonstrate the flexibility of syndromic surveillance. By using real-time data, an evolving epidemic can be rapidly characterized by its epidemiological patterns, which is not possible with traditional surveillance systems.
Chan
Emily H
EH
McGill University, 1140 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Tamblyn
Robyn
R
Charland
Katia M L
KM
Buckeridge
David L
DL
D016208:Databases, Factual; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D018588:Fee-for-Service Plans; D006801:Humans; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D010045:Outpatients; D010820:Physicians; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011792:Quebec / Q000453:epidemiology