Development and assessment of a hospital admissions-based syndromic surveillance system for COVID-19 in Ontario, Canada: ACES Pandemic Tracker.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to pose a major global public health risk. The importance of public health surveillance systems to monitor the spread and impact of COVID-19 has been well demonstrated. The purpose of this study was to describe the development and effectiveness of a real-time public health syndromic surveillance system (ACES Pandemic Tracker) as an early warning system and to provide situational awareness in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada.

Methods

We used hospital admissions data from the Acute Care Enhanced Surveillance (ACES) system to collect data on pre-defined groupings of symptoms (syndromes of interest; SOI) that may be related to COVID-19 from 131 hospitals across Ontario. To evaluate which SOI for suspected COVID-1

SUBMITTER: Papadomanolakis-Pakis N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8233625 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature