Description of a School Nurse Visit Syndromic Surveillance System and Comparison to Emergency Department Visits, New York City

摘要

Objectives. We compared school nurse visit syndromic surveillance system data to emergency department (ED) visit data for monitoring illness in New York City schoolchildren. Methods. School nurse visit data recorded in an electronic health record system are used to conduct daily surveillance of influenza-like illness, fever–flu, allergy, asthma, diarrhea, and vomiting syndromes. We calculated correlation coefficients to compare the percentage of syndrome visits to the school nurse and ED for children aged 5 to 14 years, from September 2006 to June 2011. Results. Trends in influenza-like illness correlated significantly (correlation coefficient?=?0.89; P