GPs Urged To Support Swine Flu Database, UK

Main Category: Swine Flu
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice;  IT / Internet / E-mail;  Flu / Cold / SARS
Article Date: 01 May 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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GPs across the UK are being urged to help improve monitoring of the potential swine flu pandemic by linking their IT system to a national tracking database. QSurveillance, the UK surveillance system set up to alert and to manage a flu pandemic, has appealed to all GPs using the EMIS LV system to activate a module that will feed anonymous patient data through to the database.

Currently, 3,500 EMIS practices - covering a population of 23 million patients - contribute automatically-generated, daily data to a secure server.

This enables detailed daily analyses of the number of patients reporting flu-like symptoms, and the nature of those symptoms, to be provided to the Health Protection Agency and the Department of Health.

The database - operated in partnership with the University of Nottingham - is the largest, most up-to-date real-time system worldwide.

However, there are still many more practices which could play a vital role in monitoring the spread of the disease if they opt in to the programme. Extending the database would significantly improve monitoring at a local level.

Dr David Stables, Medical Director of EMIS and a Director of QSurveillance, said: "QSurveillance has played an important role in previous public health crises, but with GPs' help we can extend the database even further at this critical time.

"The key benefit will be to improve the quality of monitoring at a local level - helping local services prepare more effectively for a pandemic, if it comes.

"The process is quick and simple - it requires activating a module within the EMIS system, which can be done in minutes. Data is then collected automatically, with no need for the practice to do anything further.

"Practices that wish to opt out at a future date can deactivate the module at any time."

Julia Hippisley-Cox, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham and Director of Q-Surveillance added: "As health organisations around the world seek to understand and combat this virus, access to real-time data is essential. Qsurveillance will provide the UK with a daily insight into developments. It is vitally important that as many GP practices as possible link up to the database, to ensure that a comprehensive picture emerges. "

Instructions on how to activate the QSurveillance module within the EMIS LV system

Source
QSurveillance

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