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Completed

NCT Number: NCT01232686

Snow Disease Surveillance System Study

The study investigates whether shared online access to epidemiological data for general practitioners, disease prevention officers, emergency care services and microbiology laboratories changes clinical practice with regard to testing, diagnosing and treatment of communicable diseases. The main hypothesis is that "online access for general practitioner to epidemiological data about communicable diseases changes clinical practice for testing, diagnosing and treatment of communicable diseases".

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Key information

Conditions

Communicable Diseases Disease Attributes Infections Pathologic Processes Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

About this study

We will collect data from general practitioners (GP) offices by installing local data extraction solutions. Each installation will build a local anonymous database of GP consultations extracted from the local electronic patient record (EPR) system. These anonymous data records will be used to produce local disease statistics before they are exported to a centralized server available in the Norwegian Health network. The centralized server will produce daily reports about the epidemiological situation in the patient population. We will combine the syndromic data from the GP offices with data from the microbiology laboratories on the hospitals that covers the study areas. The epidemiological data will be made available to the intervention areas in the study through web based and customized client applications.

By using data extracted from the GP offices EPR databases and the microbiology laboratories we will investigate the study hypothesis.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Volunteering General Practitioner (GP) working in a GP office

Exclusion criteria

  • The GP does not use a Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system

Treatment and study plan

Online disease surveillance data access

Other

In the intervention areas we will give the study participants online access to the Snow disease surveillance system. The system will provide data about the incidents of respiratory and gastrointestinal communicable diseases in the patient population.

Primary outcomes

  1. Earlier diagnosis and treatment for communicable diseases

    Time frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012)

    General practitioners (GP) have three possible decisions in a consultation with a patient; 1) treat on suspicion, 2) take a sample, 3) wait and see whether the patient recovers or get worse, or 4) a combination of 1 and 2.

    In situations with decision 3 (wait and see) the patient may return to a consultation later on.

    The hypothesis is that online access to epidemiological data from the local patient population will enable GPs to make the right decision more often based on knowledge about the epidemiological situation in the patient population.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Earlier detection of local disease outbreaks

    Time frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012)

    Syndromic surveillance enables earlier detection of local disease outbreaks compared to traditional laboratory based surveillance. We will record the time of disease outbreak detection in both intervention and control areas and compare.

  2. Lower number of infected during disease outbreaks

    Time frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012)

    We will compare the number of infected in the intervention and control areas. The hypothesis is that the intervention areas will have fewer infected compared to the control areas.

  3. Impact on health service costs

    Time frame: Measured at the end of the data collection period, approx. 1.5 year. (December 2012)

    We will measure the cost related to communicable diseases in the control and intervention areas. Our prediction is that it will change.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University Hospital of North Norway

Other

Collaborators

  • Norwegian Health Network (state owned enterprise)
  • The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Health
  • University of Tromso

Registry information

Acronym: Snow

Important dates

Study start
2010
Primary completion
2012
Study completion
2012
First posted
Nov 2, 2010
Registry last updated
Feb 16, 2017

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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