Timeliness of notification systems for infectious diseases: A systematic literature review

Abstract

IntroductionTimely notification of infectious diseases is crucial for prompt response by public health services. Adequate notification systems facilitate timely notification. A systematic literature review was performed to assess outcomes of studies on notification timeliness and to determine which aspects of notification systems are associated with timely notification.MethodologyArticles reviewing timeliness of notifications published between 2000 and 2017 were searched in Pubmed and Scopus. Using a standardized notification chain, timeliness of reporting system for each article was defined as either sufficient (≥ 80% notifications in time), partly sufficient (≥ 50–80%), or insufficient (< 50%) according to the article’s predefined timeframe, a standardized timeframe for all articles, and a disease specific timeframe. Electronic notification systems were compared with conventional methods (postal mail, fax, telephone, email) and mobile phone reporting.Results48 articles were identified. In almost one third of the studies with a predefined timeframe (39), timeliness of notification systems was either sufficient or insufficient (11/39, 28% and 12/39, 31% resp.). Applying the standardized timeframe (45 studies) revealed similar outcomes (13/45, 29%, sufficient notification timeframe, vs 15/45, 33%, insufficient). The disease specific timeframe was not met by any study. Systems involving reporting by laboratories most often complied sufficiently with predefined or standardized timeframes. Outcomes were not related to electronic, conventional notification systems or mobile phone reporting. Electronic systems were faster in comparative studies (10/13); this hardly resulted in sufficient timeliness, neither according to predefined nor to standardized timeframes.ConclusionA minority of notification systems meets either predefined, standardized or disease specific timeframes. Systems including laboratory reporting are associated with timely notification. Electronic systems reduce reporting delay, but implementation needs considerable effort to comply with notification timeframes. During outbreak threats, patient, doctors and laboratory testing delays need to be reduced to achieve timely detection and notification. Public health authorities should incorporate procedures for this in their preparedness plans.

Infectious Disease Notification Practices in Victoria, 2016–17

“…10 According to a 2018 systematic review, electronic reporting and web-based systems results in more timely notifications than post and facsimile. 16 This is consistent with the results of this audit which demonstrated that 96.4% of routine cases notified by doctors online were received within five days. However, only 23.9% of routine cases in 2016 and 2017 were notified via this method.…”

“…3 ELR requires information technology infrastructure to code disease diagnoses and transfer data from pathology laboratory databases. 16 While implementation can be challenging for public health departments, ELR has been credited with improving the timeliness of infectious disease surveillance internationally. 17,18 Given the benefits of ELR, at the DHHS a staged commencement of a largerscale ELR system is currently underway.…”

Electronic Reporting of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response: Lessons Learned from Northeast, Nigeria, 2019.

“…This is supported by the nding of Rebecca Wurtz and Bruce J. Cameron on electronic laboratory reporting (ELR). In their report, ELR increased the speed of completeness of the reporting [26,27]. Completeness of reporting in our context is not diseased speci c or case enumeration, [28] but is based on the number of health facilities sending IDSR reports to the next level within agreed deadlines [4,29].…”

PMMB COVID-19 Bulletin: Spain (18th April 2020)

“…Tackling a pandemic is surely not an easy task. Based on the protocols established by the WHO, every nation can be a "Noah", setting up surveillance system for diseases and notifying the WHO in a timely manner to ensure adequate preparedness plans [29][30][31] . With leaders over the world indicating that "failure is not as option", it is indeed dire times now as the spread of the virus cripples cities around and crashes the economies worldwide [32,33] .…”