Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Nov 14;3(4):e89.
doi: 10.2196/publichealth.7817.

Check and Report Ebola (CARE) Hotline: The User Perspective of an Innovative Tool for Postarrival Monitoring of Ebola in the United States

Ilana Olin McCarthy  1 , Abbey E Wojno  1 , Heather A Joseph  1 , Scott Teesdale  2
Affiliations

Check and Report Ebola (CARE) Hotline: The User Perspective of an Innovative Tool for Postarrival Monitoring of Ebola in the United States

Ilana Olin McCarthy et al. JMIR Public Health Surveill. .

Abstract

Background: The response to the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic included an unprecedented effort from federal, state, and local public health authorities to monitor the health of travelers entering the United States from countries with Ebola outbreaks. The Check and Report Ebola (CARE) Hotline, a novel approach to monitoring, was designed to enable travelers to report their health status daily to an interactive voice recognition (IVR) system. The system was tested with 70 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) federal employees returning from deployments in outbreak countries.

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the development of the CARE Hotline as a tool for postarrival monitoring and examine the usage characteristics and user experience of the tool during a public health emergency.

Methods: Data were obtained from two sources. First, the CARE Hotline system produced a call log which summarized the usage characteristics of all 70 users' daily health reports. Second, we surveyed federal employees (n=70) who used the CARE Hotline to engage in monitoring. A total of 21 (21/70, 30%) respondents were included in the survey analytic sample.

Results: While the CARE Hotline was used for monitoring, 70 users completed a total of 1313 calls. We found that 94.06% (1235/1313) of calls were successful, and the average call time significantly decreased from the beginning of the monitoring period to the end by 32 seconds (Z score=-6.52, P<.001). CARE Hotline call log data were confirmed by user feedback; survey results indicated that users became more familiar with the system and found the system easier to use, from the beginning to the end of their monitoring period. The majority of the users were highly satisfied (90%, 19/21) with the system, indicating ease of use and convenience as primary reasons, and would recommend it for future monitoring efforts (90%, 19/21).

Conclusions: The CARE Hotline garnered high user satisfaction, required minimal reporting time from users, and was an easily learned tool for monitoring. This phone-based technology can be modified for future public health emergencies.

Keywords: Ebola; interactive voice recognition; postarrival monitoring.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

References

    1. World Health Organization. [2016-05-11]. Ebola data and statistics: situation summary http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.ebola-sitrep.ebola-summary-latest 6pFinu7PX.
    1. Bell BP, Damon IK, Jernigan DB, Kenyon TA, Nichol ST, O'Connor JP, Tappero JW. Overview, control strategies, and lessons learned in the CDC response to the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. MMWR Suppl. 2016 Jul 08;65(3):4–11. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.su6503a2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cohen NJ, Brown CM, Alvarado-Ramy F, Bair-Brake H, Benenson GA, Chen TH, Demma AJ, Holton NK, Kohl KS, Lee AW, McAdam D, Pesik N, Roohi S, Smith CL, Waterman SH, Cetron MS. Travel and border health measures to prevent the international spread of Ebola. MMWR Suppl. 2016 Jul 08;65(3):57–67. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.su6503a9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. CDC. [2016-02-19]. Notes on the interim U.S. guidance for monitoring and movement of persons with potential Ebola virus exposure http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/exposure/monitoring-and-movement-of-persons... 6pFixB9XX. - PMC - PubMed
    1. CDC. [2015-08-15]. Epidemiologic risk factors to consider when evaluating a person for exposure to Ebola virus http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/exposure/risk-factors-when-evaluating-perso... 6pFj5bubB.

LinkOut - more resources