1. Enhancing surveillance for hepatitis C through public health informatics.
- Author
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Heisey-Grove DM, Church DR, Haney GA, and Demaria A Jr
- Subjects
- Automation, Laboratory, Contact Tracing instrumentation, Contact Tracing statistics & numerical data, Databases, Factual, Disease Notification statistics & numerical data, Electronic Data Processing, Forms and Records Control, Hepatitis C diagnosis, Humans, Massachusetts epidemiology, Medical Record Linkage, Program Development, Program Evaluation, Public Health Administration methods, Public Health Administration statistics & numerical data, Systems Integration, Time Factors, Triage organization & administration, Contact Tracing methods, Disease Notification methods, Hepatitis C epidemiology, Internet organization & administration, Population Surveillance methods, Public Health Informatics organization & administration
- Abstract
Disease surveillance for hepatitis C in the United States is limited by the occult nature of many of these infections, the large volume of cases, and limited public health resources. Through a series of discrete processes, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health modified its surveillance system in an attempt to improve timeliness and completeness of reporting and case follow-up of hepatitis C. These processes included clinician-based reporting, electronic laboratory reporting, deployment of a Web-based disease surveillance system, automated triage of pertinent data, and automated character recognition software for case-report processing. These changes have resulted in an increase in the timeliness of reporting.
- Published
- 2011
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