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Surveillance Strategies: A Primer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Elias Abrutyn  and
George H. Talbot
Elias Abrutyn*
Affiliation:
section of Infectious Diseases, Medicine Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
George H. Talbot
Affiliation:
Infectious Diseases Section and the Clinical Epidemiology Unit of the General Medicine Section, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
*
Section of Infectious Diseases, Medicine Service, Veteran's Administration Hospital, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104
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Extract

The Centers for Disease Control's Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC) showed that infection surveillance and control activities are associated with a decrease in nosocomial infection rates. Moreover, the intensity of activity correlated with the magnitude of the fall in infection rates. These results, plus the guidelines of regulatory agencies, mandate that infection control programs conduct surveillance activities. However, absolute standards for the content and nature of surveillance programs have not been established, and many descriptions of different types of surveillance programs are available. In this primer, we describe the considerations involved in development of a surveillance program with emphasis on issues concerning data collection.

Langmuir considers surveillance when applied to disease as meaning the collection of data, the analysis of those data, and the distribution of the resulting information to those needing to know. The definition implies that surveillance is observational and that surveillance activities should be clearly separated from other related activities such as control measures. The latter activities, including their initiation, approval, and funding, are administrative matters underpinned by a scientific base that are undertaken by the recipients of the surveillance data and their analyses. They should be clearly separated from surveillance activities per se. There is also the implication that action results from surveillance; surveillance without action should be abandoned.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 8 , Issue 11 , November 1987 , pp. 459 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1987

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