Timeliness of Electronic Reporting and Acceptability of Public Health Follow-Up of Routine Nonparatyphoidal and Nontyphoidal Salmonella Infections, London and South East England, 2010 to 2011

Abstract

Nonparatyphoidal and nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) infections are major causes of food poisoning in England. Diagnostic laboratories and clinicians have a statutory responsibility to report NTS infection cases to the Health Protection Agency via various means, with electronic reporting encouraged as the universal method. The Health Protection Agency (Public Health England since 1 April 2013) refers cases to environmental health departments for follow-up. Timeliness of reporting and adequacy of NTS infection case follow-up are key factors in the implementation of public health actions. Laboratories, health protection units, and environmental health departments in London and South East (SE) regions of England completed three surveys between December 2010 and April 2011, collecting data about the NTS infection case reporting methods and the time elapsed between symptom onset and public health actions. The median period between symptom onset and public health investigation was 25 days in London and 23 days in SE when electronic reporting was used and 12 days in London and 11 days in SE when other means of reporting were used. The most common follow-up method was a telephone questionnaire in London (53%) and a postal questionnaire in SE (52%). The telephone questionnaire had the highest response rate (98% in London; 96% in SE). Timeliness and efficiency of electronic NTS infection case reports can be improved by decreasing the electronic laboratory report period and using telephone-administered questionnaires to maximize the public health benefit when following up single cases of NTS infection.

Timeliness of notification systems for infectious diseases: A systematic literature review

“…However, none of these studies fulfilled the predefined timeframe, and only 2 the standardized timeframe [ 10 , 44 ]. In 3 studies, conventional reporting method was as fast as, or faster than electronic systems [ 26 , 32 , 50 ].…”

Quality and Utility of Information Captured by Surveillance Systems Relevant to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): A Systematic Review

“…This attribute was included in 18 studies [13,15,16,21,27,31,34,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][54][55][56], all using the same method (retrospective analysis of routinely collected data) but different reference periods to measure timeliness. These included the interval between the onset of symptoms and the notification to health authorities [40,43]; specimen collection to case reporting [27,42,54]; isolation at the primary laboratory to reporting to the surveillance body [47]; onset of symptoms to completion of case investigation [44]; reporting within one week of starting treatment [31]; starting treatment to notification [21]; notification within one or two incubation periods [40]; reporting delays regularly more than three months [13].…”

“…With the exception of one [16], all evaluations reported that timeliness of reporting could be improved, and some recommended that future research should explore the bottlenecks in the reporting process [41,42]. Suggestions made for improving the timeliness of reporting included transmitting laboratory reports electronically [56], reducing the laboratory electronic reporting period [55], and sending a sample of isolates to the national reference laboratory while the isolate is being analysed at the primary laboratory to reduce the delays incurred by waiting for the results of partial analysis [47].…”

“…This attribute was examined in five studies through the use of surveys of users [16,55] and semi-structured interviews [13,15,54]. These found varying levels of acceptability related to awareness of the system and ease of use of the system.…”

Effect of MyMAFI—A Newly Developed Mobile App for Field Investigation of Food Poisoning Outbreak on the Timeliness in Reporting: A Randomized Crossover Trial

“…Most cases of food poisoning involve a short incubation period. Thus, timeliness of reporting is a crucial factor that influences the implementation of effective public health interventions [8]. The key strength of an outbreak investigation is determined by how rapid the public health acts and initiates coordination across multiple organizations [9].…”