SurvNet@RKI – a multistate electronic reporting system for communicable diseases

Abstract

In 2001 Germany implemented a new electronic reporting system for surveillance of notifiable infectious diseases (SurvNet@RKI). The system is currently being used in all 431 local health departments (LHD), the 16 state health departments (SHD) and the Robert Koch-Institut (RKI), the national agency for infectious disease epidemiology. The SurvNet@RKI software is written in MS Access 97 and Visual Basic and it supports MS Access as well as MS SQL Server database management systems as a back-end. The database is designed as a distributed, dynamic database for 73 reporting categories with more than 600 fields and about 7000 predefined entry values. An integrated version management system documents deletion, undeletion, completion and correction of cases at any time and entry level and allows reproduction of previously conducted queries. Integrated algorithms and help functions support data quality and the application of case definitions. RKI makes the system available to all LHDs and SHDs free of charge. RKI receives an average of 300 000 case reports and 6240 outbreak reports per year through this system. A public web-based query interface, SurvStat@RKI, assures extensive and timely publication of the data. During the 5 years that SurvNet@RKI has been running in all LHDs and SHDs in Germany it has coped well with a complex federal structure which makes this system particularly attractive to multinational surveillance networks. The system is currently being migrated to Microsoft C#/.NET and transport formats in XML. Based on our experiences, we provide recommendations for the design and implementation of national or international electronic surveillance systems.

Underreporting of communicable diseases in the prefecture of Achaia, western Greece, 1999-2004 – missed opportunities for early intervention

“…The benefits of which in terms of improved timeliness and completeness compared with conventional records have been clearly demonstrated [19]. Several countries, including Greece, may need to look at how best to improve their national standards of electronic disease reporting to be able to compare their data with other EU Member States like the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, where such systems are already in use [19][20][21]. Low penetration of internet usage in the Greek society, even among health professionals, along with ethical considerations made it difficult to impose a web-based surveillance system in the last decade [22].…”

Analysis of Integrated Virological and Epidemiological Reports of Norovirus Outbreaks Collected within the Foodborne Viruses in Europe Network from 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2006

“…In 2005 Germany started reporting outbreaks to the FBVE database collected through a new surveillance system. Cases are registered, and subsequently outbreaks are established by linking individual cases into groups (10). For some of the outbreaks the virus is characterized, but due to stringent privacy laws these characterized viruses cannot be linked to individual outbreaks.…”

Mumps epidemiology in Germany 2007-11

“…We retrieved mandatory mumps notification data reported from EFS through the German electronic surveillance system 'SurvNet' [23] that is routinely used by public health authorities to anonymously report information on inpatient and outpatient cases with notifiable diseases to the national level. The 'SurvNet' system was also used by district health authorities for the voluntary ad-hoc mumps reporting during the outbreak in Bavaria 2010/11.…”