Human temperatures for syndromic surveillance in the emergency department: data from the autumn wave of the 2009 swine flu (H1N1) pandemic and a seasonal influenza outbreak
| Autor: | Dmitriy Burmistrov, Charles Harding, Leon D. Sanchez, Daniel C. McGillicuddy, Francesco Pompei, Samantha F. Bordonaro |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Male
medicine.medical_specialty Fever Disease 01 natural sciences Disease Outbreaks Seasonal influenza Emergency medical service 010104 statistics & probability 03 medical and health sciences Influenza A Virus H1N1 Subtype 0302 clinical medicine Public health surveillance Influenza Human Pandemic medicine Humans 030212 general & internal medicine 0101 mathematics Syndromic surveillance Emergency department business.industry Temperature Timeliness Outbreak Middle Aged medicine.disease Triage Influenza H1n1 pandemic Technical Advance Population Surveillance Emergency medicine Emergency Medicine Female Seasons Medical emergency Emergency Service Hospital business Boston |
| Zdroj: | BMC Emergency Medicine |
| ISSN: | 1471-227X |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12873-016-0080-7 |
| Popis: | Background The emergency department (ED) increasingly acts as a gateway to the evaluation and treatment of acute illnesses. Consequently, it has also become a key testing ground for systems that monitor and identify outbreaks of disease. Here, we describe a new technology that automatically collects body temperatures during triage. The technology was tested in an ED as an approach to monitoring diseases that cause fever, such as seasonal flu and some pandemics. Methods Temporal artery thermometers that log temperature measurements were placed in a Boston ED and used for initial triage vital signs. Time-stamped measurements were collected from the thermometers to investigate the performance a real-time system would offer. The data were summarized in terms of rates of fever (temperatures ≥100.4 °F [≥38.0 °C]) and were qualitatively compared with regional disease surveillance programs in Massachusetts. Results From September 2009 through August 2011, 71,865 body temperatures were collected and included in our analysis, 2073 (2.6 %) of which were fevers. The period of study included the autumn–winter wave of the 2009–2010 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic, during which the weekly incidence of fever reached a maximum of 5.6 %, as well as the 2010–2011 seasonal flu outbreak, during which the maximum weekly incidence of fever was 6.6 %. The periods of peak fever rates corresponded with the periods of regionally elevated flu activity. Conclusions Temperature measurements were monitored at triage in the ED over a period of 2 years. The resulting data showed promise as a potential surveillance tool for febrile disease that could complement current disease surveillance systems. Because temperature can easily be measured by non-experts, it might also be suitable for monitoring febrile disease activity in schools, workplaces, and transportation hubs, where many traditional syndromic indicators are impractical. However, the system’s validity and generalizability should be evaluated in additional years and settings. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12873-016-0080-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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