National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, the Australian National University, Australia Capital Territory, Australia.
Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria, Australia.
Commun Dis Intell (2018). 2020 Nov 24;44. doi: 10.33321/cdi.2020.44.98.
Public health surveillance is crucial for supporting a rapid and effective response to public health emergencies. In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, an enhanced surveillance system of hospitalised COVID-19 patients was established by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System Coordinating Centre. The system aimed to reduce workforce capacity constraints and increase situational awareness on the status of hospitalised patients.
The system was evaluated, using guidelines from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, against eight attributes: acceptability; data quality; flexibility; representativeness; simplicity; stability; timeliness; and usefulness. Evidence was generated from stakeholder consultation, participant observation, document review, systems review, issues log review and audits. Data were collected and analysed over a period of up to three months, covering pre- and post-implementation from March to June 2020.
This system was rapidly established by leveraging established relationships and infrastructure. Stakeholders agreed that the system was important but was limited by a reliance on daily manual labour (including weekends), which impeded scalability. The ability of the system to perform well in each attribute was expected to shift with the severity of the pandemic; however, at the time of this evaluation, when there were an average 23 new cases per day (0.3 cases per 100,000 population per day), the system performed well.
This enhanced surveillance system was useful and achieved its key DHHS objectives during the COVID-19 public health emergency in Victoria. Recommendations for improvement were made to the current and future systems, including the need to plan alternatives to improve the system's scalability and to maintain stakeholder acceptability.
公共卫生监测对于支持对公共卫生紧急情况的快速和有效反应至关重要。为应对冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，维多利亚州卫生部和人类服务部（DHHS）和维多利亚州医疗保健相关感染监测系统协调中心建立了一个强化的 COVID-19 住院患者监测系统。该系统旨在减少劳动力能力限制，并提高对住院患者状况的了解。
该系统根据美国疾病控制与预防中心的指南，针对八个属性进行了评估：可接受性；数据质量；灵活性；代表性；简单性；稳定性；及时性；和有用性。证据来自利益相关者的协商，参与者观察，文件审查，系统审查，问题日志审查和审核。数据收集和分析的时间跨度长达三个月，涵盖 2020 年 3 月至 6 月的实施前和实施后。
该系统通过利用现有的关系和基础设施迅速建立。利益相关者一致认为该系统很重要，但受到对日常手工劳动（包括周末）的依赖的限制，这阻碍了可扩展性。该系统在每个属性中的表现预计会随着大流行的严重程度而变化；然而，在评估时，每天平均有 23 例新病例（每 10 万人口每天 0.3 例），该系统表现良好。
在维多利亚 COVID-19 公共卫生紧急情况下，这个强化监测系统是有用的，并实现了 DHHS 的主要目标。向当前和未来的系统提出了改进建议，包括需要规划替代方案以提高系统的可扩展性并保持利益相关者的可接受性。
