title: Veterinary syndromic surveillance in practice: costs and benefits for governmental organizations.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We describe a veterinary syndromic surveillance system developed in Sweden based on laboratory test requests.
  
  
  METHODS
  The system is a desktop application built using free software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Development took 1 year. During the first year of operation, utility was demonstrated by the detection of statistically significant increases in the number of laboratory submissions. The number of false alarms was considered satisfactory in order to achieve the desired sensitivity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Besides the demonstrated benefit for disease surveillance, the system contributed to improving data quality and communication between the diagnostic departments and the epidemiology department.
authors.affiliation: Department of Disease Control and Epidemiology, National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Uppsala, Sweden; fernanda.dorea@sva.se.
authors.forename: Fernanda C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Dórea
authors.affiliation: Department of Disease Control and Epidemiology, National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lindberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Disease Control and Epidemiology, National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elvander
keywords: aberration detection; animal health; laboratory data