[Grace]

Discussion Question: Surveillance is the systematic, ongoing collection, collation and analysis of data with timely dissemination of information. What kinds of surveillance do you see occurring at your current or a past workplace? What do you see as important surveillance at your workplace and why?

[Robin]

Robin

We are currently in VRE outbreak where I work. Surveillance is so important in preventing the spread to other units or to the community. Each patient is swabbed on admission to the hospital, admission to another nit, and before discharge. This tells us potentially where it stemmed from and how quickly it is spreading. Sometimes it tells management if PPE is being used when and how it should be as well.

[Rahmatu]

Hi Robin.
Great contribution. I agree with you that surveillance helps the management team audit PPE usage to determine if these are being used efficiently. During the COVID-19 pandemic, management at my work place actively used this to monitor PPE usage and I am fascinated till date how they were able to ascertain this through surveillance data. It is therefore an important means of reducing wastage, a tool that enables the proactive implementation of disease-specific interventions aimed at preventing infectious disease transmission.

[Rahmatu]

The World Health Organization (WHO) describe surveillance as the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data (WHO, 2024). Data obtained from outbreak surveillance serve as an important warning signs of impending outbreaks that cold potentially result in public health emergencies. Also, surveillance enables the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of an intervention, and helps track progress towards a set goal.
At my place of work, some of the infectious disease surveillance methods use includes active screening of patient infectious diseases such as MRSA, VRE, CPE upon admission, during exposure to infectious disease agents, and routinely. These steps in surveillance helps the organization to ascertain the prevalence of these diseases, determine interventions to be adopted, and to evaluate the impact of the strategies that have been put in place to curb transmission.

References

World Health Organization [WHO]. (2024). Surveillance in emergencies. https://www.who.int/emergencies/surveillance

[Author]

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