Successful Implementation of a Multicountry Clinical Surveillance and Data Collection System for Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa: Findings and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Despite resource and logistical constraints, International Medical Corps cared for thousands at 5 Ebola treatment units in Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2014 and 2015 while collecting hundreds of data points on each patient. To facilitate data collection and global reporting in future humanitarian responses, standardized data forms and databases, with clear definitions of clinical and epidemiological variables, should be developed and adopted by the international community.

Characteristics and Outcomes of Pediatric Patients With Ebola Virus Disease Admitted to Treatment Units in Liberia and Sierra Leone: A Retrospective Cohort Study

“…Patients were cared for by trained medical staff who recorded clinical data on paper forms. These data were digitized at each ETU and unified into a database, as described previously [26]. …”

“…These data were transferred to separate electronic databases at each ETU and later combined. A random sampling audit concluded that >99% of the data in IMC’s unified database was accurate [26]. …”

Environmental temperature and case fatality of patients with Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone and Liberia, 2014–2015: a retrospective cohort study

“…It is also possible that the association between heat and case fatality is influenced by other confounding variables yet to be adequately identified. An unlikely explanation for our findings is that the average environmental temperature across ETU stays was higher among deceased patients because the duration of ETU stay among deceased patients was shorter on average than that among patients who survived, as previously reported in the analyses using this dataset . Shorter ETU stays could lead to more aberrant average environmental temperatures; as fewer days are included in the average.…”

“…Using iterative data entry, the LQAS process achieved 99% accuracy vs . source clinical data, as previously described .…”

“…In particular, multisite research derived from large patient populations is crucial to better inform future response programs. As previously reported, throughout the course of the 2014-2016 epidemic, the International Medical Corps (IMC) developed a clinical database to fulfil these criteria, thereby providing a robust data cache to analyse factors that affect case fatality [4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”