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The Impact of Documentation Style on Influenza-Like Illness Rates in the Emergency Department

Description

In recent years, the threat of pandemic influenza has drawn extensive attention to the development and implementation of syndromic surveillance systems for early detection of ILI. Emergency department (ED) data are key components for syndromic surveillance systems. However, the lack of standardization for the content in chief complaint (CC) free-text fields may make it challenging to use these elements in syndromic surveillance systems. Furthermore, little is known regarding how ED data sources should be structured or combined to increase sensitivity without elevating false positives. In this study, we constructed two different models of ED data sources and evaluated the resulting ILI rates obtained in two different institutions.

Objective

To compare the influenza-like illness (ILI) rates in the emergency departments (ED) of a community hospital versus a large academic medical center (AMC).

Submitted by rmathes on