![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.jpg)
BACKGROUND: Certain information is vital to infectious disease follow-up including occupation for enteric diseases or blood transfusion history for babesiosis. In January 2014, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) implemented new functionality in the state’s electronic surveillance and case management system, the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiologic Network (MAVEN), to highlight the need to capture these critical data. ISIS hypothesized that incorporation of this new functionality would prompt case investigators to answer these important questions.
METHODS: In January 2014, the MDPH, Bureau of Infectious Disease, Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics (ISIS) enabled a MAVEN function, called Concerns. Concerns are color-coded text highlights which are specific by disease. Concerns appear in the main notification section of disease events and highlight questions that need to be completed during case follow-up. For example, for enteric diseases, ISIS created the following concern: “Please note the case's occupation in the Demographic Question Package.” For babesiosis, ISIS created a concern: “Please note in the Risk/Exposure/Control & Prevention Question Package whether or not the case has received a blood transfusion, tissue products or organ transplant in the past year.” The effect of concerns on completeness of these variables among confirmed cases in 2013 and 2014 was evaluated for statistical significance with Pearson’s chi-squared test for association with percent of completeness. Cases where the official city was missing or listed as N/A, cases where the investigation was not completed due to lost to follow up, and where the investigation was deemed unnecessary by MDPH, were excluded from the analysis.
RESULTS: For salmonellosis in 2013, 48% (N=482) of 1013 confirmed cases were missing occupational information. In 2014, 25% (N=278) of 1121 confirmed cases were missing occupational information. This is a reduction of 47% of missing information (p<0.0001). For babesiosis in 2013, 19% (N=71) of 366 confirmed cases were missing blood transfusion information. In 2014, 10 % (N=45) of 467 confirmed cases were missing blood transfusion information (p<0.0001). This is a reduction of 47% of missing information (p<0.0001).
CONCLUSIONS: Incorporating concerns into MAVEN significantly reduced the percentage of missing information for vital questions in disease follow up. Additional diseases should be considered for a similar approach to increasing completeness of important variables.