During the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) temporarily made lab-confirmed influenza hospitalizations and deaths reportable. As reporting influenza hospitalizations is resource intensive for hospitals, electronic sources of inpatient influenza surveillance data are being explored. A large Health Information Exchange (WA-HIE) currently sends DOH the following data elements on patients admitted to 14 hospitals throughout eastern Washington: hospital, admission date, age, gender, patient zip code, chief complaint, final diagnoses, discharge disposition, and unique identifiers. WA-HIE inpatient data may be valuable for monitoring influenza activity, influenza morbidity, and the basic epidemiology of hospitalized influenza cases in Washington.
Objective
To evaluate the timeliness, completeness, and representativeness of influenza hospitalization data from an inpatient health information exchange.