Influenza-Like-Illness (ILI) and Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (LRTI) Surveillance
TARRANT conducts ILI and LRTI surveillance in Alberta through a sentinel network. Sentinels screen patients for ILI/LRTI symptoms and report to TARRANT the number of patients seen every week and how many of these patients had a chief concern of ILI/LRTI. This data is used as an indicator of influenza activity and is disseminated to provincial public health bodies, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the World Health Organization.
Weekly Influenza Surveillance is completed using online reporting via REDCap. REDCap is a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. Each week a sentinel (or their designated staff member) receives an email from our REDCap project that provides them with a link to their online report for that week. The sentinel simply needs to click the link in their email and they will be taken to their personalized online reporting survey. Here they will report the number of patients they saw each day they worked and of these patients how many presented with ILI/LRTI. Once recording their weekly numbers, sentinels can click submit and they are done for the week! Online reporting is quick and easy and no user name or password is required. Below is a representation of what your survey will look like: