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Forecasting hospital pneumonia admissions using influenza surveillance, climate and community data

Description

Influenza peaks around June and December in Singapore every year. Facing an ageing population, hospitals in Singapore have been constantly reaching maximum bed occupancy. The ability to be able to make early decisions during peak periods is important. Tan Tock Seng Hospital is the second largest adult acute care general hospital in Singapore. Pneumonia-related emergency department (ED) admissions are a huge burden to the hospital's resources. The number of cases vary year on year as it depends on seasonal vaccine effectiveness and the population's immunity to the circulating strain. While many pneumonia cases are of unknown origin, they tend to mirror the influenza seasons very closely.

Objective: Using the information that we have available, our primary objective is to explore if there was any cross-correlation between pneumonia admissions and hospital influenza positivity. We then aim to develop a data driven approach to forecast pneumonia admissions using data from our hospital's weekly surveillance. We also attempted using external sources of information such as national infectious diseases notifications and climate data to see if they were useful for our model.

Submitted by elamb on