Respiratory virus surveillance
Syndor and colleagues7 describe the use of an electronic respiratory
virus surveillance system using TheraDoc clinical surveillance
software (Premier, Inc., Charlotte, NC) at a university-based outpatient
care continuum clinic serving low-risk hematopoietic stem cell
transplant recipients. Year-round electronic query of respiratory virus
test results were performed twice weekly outside of respiratory virus
season and then daily once respiratory virus cases were detected.
The authors found that the use of the surveillance system allowed
for the early detection of a human parainfluenza virus 3 outbreak
in the clinic occurring outside of the peak respiratory virus season
resulting in the rapid implementation of effective infection control
measures. An outbreak investigation found that the majority of
human parainfluenza virus 3 cases were acquired in the clinic.