Snow Disease Surveillance System Study

• Earlier detection of local disease outbreaks [ Time Frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012) ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  Syndromic surveillance enables earlier detection of local disease outbreaks compared to traditional laboratory based surveillance. We will record the time of disease outbreak detection in both intervention and control areas and compare.
• Lower number of infected during disease outbreaks [ Time Frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012) ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  We will compare the number of infected in the intervention and control areas. The hypothesis is that the intervention areas will have fewer infected compared to the control areas.
• Impact on health service costs [ Time Frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012) ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  We will measure the cost related to communicable diseases in the control and intervention areas. Our prediction is that it will change.

The study investigates whether shared online access to epidemiological data for general practitioners, disease prevention officers, emergency care services and microbiology laboratories changes clinical practice with regard to testing, diagnosing and treatment of communicable diseases. The main hypothesis is that "online access for general practitioner to epidemiological data about communicable diseases changes clinical practice for testing, diagnosing and treatment of communicable diseases".

We will collect data from general practitioners (GP) offices by installing local data extraction solutions. Each installation will build a local anonymous database of GP consultations extracted from the local electronic patient record (EPR) system. These anonymous data records will be used to produce local disease statistics before they are exported to a centralized server available in the Norwegian Health network. The centralized server will produce daily reports about the epidemiological situation in the patient population. We will combine the syndromic data from the GP offices with data from the microbiology laboratories on the hospitals that covers the study areas. The epidemiological data will be made available to the intervention areas in the study through web based and customized client applications.

By using data extracted from the GP offices EPR databases and the microbiology laboratories we will investigate the study hypothesis.

• No Intervention: Control area
  In the control areas we will monitor the prevalence and treatment of communicable diseases without giving the participants online access to disease surveillance information
• Experimental: Intervention area
  In these areas we will give study participants online access to epidemiological data for communicable diseases
  Intervention: Other: Online disease surveillance data access

Inclusion Criteria:

• Volunteering General Practitioner (GP) working in a GP office

Exclusion Criteria:

• The GP does not use a Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system

• University of Tromso
• The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Health
• Norwegian Health Network (state owned enterprise)