Page 228 - Timeliness of Infectious Disease Notification & Response Systems - Corien Swaan

226 Summary
sionals, by providing information on surveillance results, and discuss delayed notifications on regular base.
Preparedness for emerging infections needs a multidisciplinary approach overarching both the public health and curative sector. For enhanced prepared- ness of group A diseases as Ebola, or other emerging infections, national coor- dination by the RIVM is requested by professionals from the public health and curative sector. Standardized guidelines for infection prevention, blueprints for regional coordination and contingency phases improve preparedness. For this reason, the RIVM initiated the Platform for Preparedness for Group A diseases.
c. Costs
For automated electronic reporting laboratory reporting and reporting through medical records, financial investment, personnel input for ICT and security should be taken into account, as well as the reduction of notification delay in relation to the total local disease identification delay. However, automated sys- tems might reduce personnel input by the notifying health professional, facili- tate notification completeness in terms of number of notifications and informa- tion provided per notification.
Centralization of ambulance care and further centralization of designat- ed academic hospitals for VHF and other highly infectious emerging infections would substantially reduce costs for enhanced preparedness for these organi- zations.