BACKGROUND: The recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks highlighted the importance of rapid identification and surveillance for travel-related diseases. Clinicians play a vital role in early identification and reporting of infectious diseases, though often cannot easily access information about international outbreaks. We describe the Travel Clinical Assistant (TCA), a searchable web-based tool created by the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) to improve diagnosis and reporting of travel-related diseases by clinicians.
METHODS: GDPH epidemiologists collaborated with the State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (SendSS) Team to develop the TCA. A third party informatics company, a producer of diagnostic and reference tools for infectious diseases, provided access to a database of travel-related diseases. This database populates the TCA in real-time via secure file transfer protocols and is available to search by country through a web-based interface. The TCA links to clinical disease information and lists incubation period, symptoms, transmission modes, and infection control and reporting recommendations for diseases associated with current outbreaks. In addition, to increase reporting of travel-related disease, GDPH added questions about international travel, including dates and countries, to all electronic notifiable disease report forms in SendSS.
RESULTS: TCA went live on the GDPH website (http://dph.georgia.gov/TravelClinicalAssistant) on May 13, 2016, allowing clinicians to search for endemic diseases and outbreaks in 231 countries. The TCA was formally presented to the medical community in Georgia via a statewide webinar hosted by the State Epidemiologist and the Georgia Hospital Association. The TCA received positive reviews from clinicians and District epidemiologists and as of December 9, 2016, has been visited 2,580 times. Since the addition of travel-related disease questions in SendSS, disease reports can be queried by travel history; during February 8–December 31, 2016, 225 notifiable disease cases reported international travel by the patient within 30 days of symptom onset.
CONCLUSIONS: GDPH developed easily accessible, web-based tools to enhance surveillance for travel-related infectious diseases. We plan to develop a report feature to assist state and district epidemiologists in identifying travel-related outbreaks of notifiable diseases reported in SendSS. Based on the initial positive response from clinicians, GDPH is working to promote the TCA in the wider medical community, and to evaluate the TCA to guide improvements and ensure that the tool continues to meet the needs of the medical and public health communities.