Novel Use of a Surveillance System to Enhance Communication with General Public and Local Boards of Health

BACKGROUND:   The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), Bureau of Infectious Diseases (BID) utilized legacy and siloed MS Access database to manage calls from the general public, and contact information for staff responsible for case investigation and follow-up of infectious diseases in 351 cities/towns. In order to integrate these activities with infectious disease surveillance and follow-up activities, the BID Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics (ISIS) enhanced the capacity of our existing surveillance system, the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiologic Network (MAVEN), in 2009, 2013 and 2014.

METHODS: In response to database failure due to the large volume of calls during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, ISIS migrated existing variables and added new questions and workflows to MAVEN to manage all calls made to the main phone line at MDPH BID. Each call is now logged into MAVEN and given a unique event ID, and programmatic assignment to a workflow for General Epidemiology, Vaccine Preventable Disease Epidemiology or ISIS.  Once assigned to a workflow, appropriate staff respond to the call and document the outcome. A Communication (COM) event was created in 2013 to support dissemination of a surveillance Key Indicator Report for each city/town. In 2014, a set of questions were developed for COM events to track contact information for MDPH and LBOH staff, with allowance for local editing. This new question package allows MDPH staff to locate appropriate LBOH staff for disease follow-up and case investigation direction.

RESULTS:  In 2013, there were 6,569 and in 2014 there were 6,860+ “On-Call events”, questions from LBOH or from the general public and clinicians, created for the three programmatic areas. The epidemiologists responding to infectious disease events now use the LBOH question package for identifying public health personnel, contact information, office hours for LBOH and Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) coverage information. The web-based system can be accessed after business hours and on weekends by on-call epidemiologists for communicating with LBOH.

CONCLUSIONS:  Integrating On-Call and Communication capacity within MAVEN has allowed MDPH to retire aging databases and improve communication between MDPH and LBOH and with the general public. The LBOH now have the ability to update their contact and communication information directly and in real-time.