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General Practitioner House Call Network (SOS Médecins): An Essential Tool for Syndromic Surveillance – Bordeaux, France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2020

Laure Meurice Open the ORCID record for Laure Meurice [Opens in a new window] ,
Thierry Chapon ,
Frédéric Chemin ,
Laurence Gourinchas ,
Stéphane Sauvagnac ,
Sébastien Uijttewaal  and
Stéphanie Vandentorren
Laure Meurice*
Affiliation:
French National Public Health Agency, Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Office, Bordeaux, France
Thierry Chapon
Affiliation:
SOS Médecins La Rochelle, La Rochelle, France
Frédéric Chemin
Affiliation:
SOS Médecins Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Laurence Gourinchas
Affiliation:
SOS Médecins Limoges, Limoges, France
Stéphane Sauvagnac
Affiliation:
SOS Médecins Côte Basque, Côte Basque, France
Sébastien Uijttewaal
Affiliation:
SOS Médecins Pau, Pau, France
Stéphanie Vandentorren
Affiliation:
French National Public Health Agency, Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Office, Bordeaux, France
*
Correspondence: Laure Meurice, French National Public Health Agency, Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Office, Bordeaux, France, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Introduction:

In the French mainland administrative region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, syndromic surveillance is based on hospital emergency data, mortality data, and data from associations belonging to the SOS Médecins network. The aim of the present article is to describe the functioning of this network and to illustrate its use for syndromic surveillance in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

Method:

The SOS Médecins network participates in the syndromic surveillance system SurSaUD, developed by Santé publique France (SpF; the French National Public Health Agency; Saint-Maurice, Paris, France). Near real-time data are automatically transmitted daily to a data server and analyzed by SpF’s Nouvelle Aquitaine’s regional unit to identify, monitor, and evaluate the impact of expected and unexpected health events in the region.

Results:

The SOS Médecins network has five local associations spread across the region with 146 participating physicians. Data have been recorded for more than 10 years and represented nearly 481,000 visits in 2017. The resulting database has helped to identify and monitor seasonal epidemics and unexpected events, as well as measure the health impact of these events.

Conclusion:

The data from the SOS Médecins network are an essential source in syndromic surveillance. They complement surveillance data from other sources. More specifically, mortality and emergency unit traffic reflect the most severe cases, while SOS Médecins data help early detection of epidemics and health events in the general population. The network has shown its responsiveness and its reliability, not only for the surveillance of seasonal epidemics, but also for the detection of unusual signals. It therefore constitutes an essential link in syndromic surveillance in France, and specifically in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.

Keywords

Nouvelle-AquitaineSOS Médecinssyndromic surveillance
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , June 2020 , pp. 326 - 330
Copyright
© World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2020

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