Public Health Surveillance Using Emergency Medical Service Logs—U.S.–Mexico Land Border, El Paso, Texas, 2009

Fishbein et al discuss CDC's evaluation of the utility of monitoring emergency medical service (EMS) dispatch and response logs for ill travelers with symptoms or signs suggestive of infectious diseases using medical records of patients transported by EMS during 2009 from the four land ports of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 2010-07, Vol.304 (4), p.401-403
Main Authors: Fishbein, D, Sandoval, M, Wright, C, Herrera, S, Reese, S, Wilson, T, Escobedo, M, Waterman, S, Modi, S, Keir, J, Lipman, H, Sugerman, D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boundaries
Emergency medical care
Infectious diseases
Medical records
Public health
Software
Surveillance
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Summary:Fishbein et al discuss CDC's evaluation of the utility of monitoring emergency medical service (EMS) dispatch and response logs for ill travelers with symptoms or signs suggestive of infectious diseases using medical records of patients transported by EMS during 2009 from the four land ports of entries in El Paso, Texas. The screening was conducted using commercial software that monitors EMS logs and sends alerts in real time based on preestablished criteria. Records that met the criteria were forwarded to El Paso Quarantine Station personnel and reviewed within 24 hours. If a reportable infectious disease was suspected, the final diagnosis was requested from the receiving hospital. This report summarizes the results of the evaluation, which found that, of 50,779 EMS responses in the city of El Paso, 455 (0.9%) records met alert criteria, 86 (0.2%) needed diagnostic confirmation, and nine (< 01%) were for reportable infectious diseases. A CDC editorial note is included.
ISSN:0098-7484
1538-3598