A Mobile App and Dashboard for Early Detection of Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Development Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Outbreaks of infectious diseases pose great risks, including hospitalisation and death, to public health. Improving the management of outbreaks is therefore important for preventing widespread infection and mitigating associated risks. Mobile health (mHealth) technology provides new capabilities that can help better capture, monitor and manage infectious diseases, including the ability to quickly identify potential outbreaks. OBJECTIVE To develop a new infectious disease surveillance (IDS) system comprising of a mobile app for accurate data capturing and dashboard for better healthcare planning and decision making. METHODS Literature review on available and similar disease surveillance systems was conducted to understand the fundamental functional-requirements. We then derived the specific scope and requirements of the system by consulting the local public health unit (PHU) team from the Nepean hospital, Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District (NBMLHD), New South Wales (NSW), Australia. RESULTS We identified 3 fundamental requirements when designing an electronic IDS system, which are the ability to 1) accurately, 2) completely and 3) timely (ACT) capture and report outbreak data. We then developed our IDS system based on the workflow, scope and specific requirements gathered from the PHU team. We also produced detailed design and requirement guidelines. In our system, the outbreak data is captured and sent from anywhere using a mobile device or desktop PC (web interface). The data are processed using a client-server architecture and therefore can be analysed in real-time. Our dashboard is designed to provide a daily, weekly, monthly and, historical summary of outbreaks information, which can be potentially used to develop a future intervention plan. Specific information about certain outbreaks can also be visualised interactively to understand the unique characteristics of emerging infectious diseases. CONCLUSIONS We demonstrate the development of our IDS system. We suggest that the use of a mobile app and dashboard will simplify the overall data collection, reporting and analysing processes, and thereby improving the public health responses and providing accurate registration of outbreak information. The accurate data reporting and collection are a major step forward to creating a better intervention plan for a future outbreak of infectious diseases.