Evaluation of the timeliness and completeness of a Web-based notifiable disease reporting system by a local health department

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the completeness and timeliness of the Colorado statewide Web-based system for reporting notifiable diseases, called the Colorado Electronic Disease Reporting System. This project demonstrates how a local health department can conduct a surveillance evaluation to identify areas of improvement.

Methods: Reports received by Colorado for 2004 were categorized as Tri-County Health Department (TCHD) reports and reports received for the rest of Colorado. Report completeness and timeliness were compared for all diseases routinely followed up by TCHD for both datasets. A data field was considered complete if there was data entry for that field. Timeliness in this study was defined as the interval between "specimen collection date" and "report date" for each record.

Results: Six of 12 selected data fields were 95% or more complete for both datasets. Twenty-four-hour notifiable diseases were reported a median of 2.0 days for reports in the TCHD dataset and a median of 3.0 days for reports in the dataset for the rest of Colorado. Seven-day notifiable diseases were reported a median of 4.0 days for both datasets.

Conclusions: Both Colorado datasets were found to be relatively complete and timely. Improved data collection by interviewers will help better determine demographic information of reported cases and timeliness of reports.