Evaluating the utility of syndromic surveillance algorithms for screening to detect potentially clonal hospital infection outbreaks.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The authors evaluated algorithms commonly used in syndromic surveillance for use as screening tools to detect potentially clonal outbreaks for review by infection control practitioners.

Design

Study phase 1 applied four aberrancy detection algorithms (CUSUM, EWMA, space-time scan statistic, and WSARE) to retrospective microbiologic culture data, producing a list of past candidate outbreak clusters. In phase 2, four infectious disease physicians categorized the phase 1 algorithm-identified clusters to ascertain algorithm performance. In phase 3, project members combined the algorithms to create a unified screening system and conducted a retrospective pilot evaluation.

Measurements

The study calculated recall and precision for each algorithm, and created preci

SUBMITTER: Carnevale RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3128411 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature