After the major impact of the 2003 heat wave, France needed a reactive, permanent and national surveillance system enabling to detect and to follow-up various public health events all over the territory including overseas. In June 2004, the French syndromic surveillance system based on the emergency department (ED) has been implemented by the national institute for public health surveillance (InVS). Beginning with 23 ED in 2004, the network has progressively included new ED and several steps have contributed to accelerate this permanent increase. A first evaluation of this data source was conducted for the specific surveillance of heat wave.
Objective
Implemented 10 years ago, the French emergency department surveillance system (Oscour Network) has been assessed using four major evaluation criteria in syndromic surveillance: stability, coverage, data quality and utility.