Track 2: Public Health Surveillance

The use of patient temperature data for biosurveillance in the emergency department DG Cochrane, and JR Allegra New Jersey Research Foundation, Morristown Memorial Hospital Residency in Emergency Medicine, Morristown, NJ, USA E-mail: [email protected] Introduction Biosurveillance systems commonly use emergency department (ED) patient chief complaint data (CC) for surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI). Daily volumes are tracked using a computerized patient CC classifier for fever (CC Fever) to identify febrile patients. Limitations in this method have led to efforts to identify other sources of ED data. At many EDs the triage nurse measures the patient’s temperature on arrival and records it in the electronic medical record (EMR). This makes it possible to directly identify patients who meet the CDC temperature criteria for ILI: temperature greater than 100 degrees F (T4100F). Objective To evaluate whether a classifier based on temperature 4100F would perform similarly to CC Fever and might identify additional patients. Methods Design: Retrospective review of EMR data. Setting: Five EDs in New York and New Jersey from 10-1-07 to 5-31-09. Protocol: For patients with a measured temperature, we determined daily volumes for CC Fever and for T4100 and compared them using linear regression analysis and visual inspection of the time-series graphs. We also determined the additional This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 /7 /0 7 1/ 7/ 08 4/ 7/ 08 7/ 7/ 08 10 /7 /0 8 1/ 7/ 09 4/ 7/ 09 D ai ly V is its fever CC