Definitions
This term refers to the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data.
What is surveillance
Examples include FluWatch, CNISP and wastewater monitoring
What are national surveillance programs in Canada
Definitions that usually include laboratory evidence and may or may not include compatible signs and symptoms of illness
What are confirmed case definitions
The type of surveillance that verifies procedures and standards of practice are followed
What is process surveillance
The degree to which data represent what is happening in the facility
What is data quality
An infection acquired during the delivery of healthcare, that was not present or incubating at the time of admission.
What is healthcare associated infection. OR What is a nosocomial infection.
Clinicians and laboratories report cases to this level of government
What are local public health units
The main reason for using standardized, validated case definitions
What is comparability
The type of surveillance that can inform what diseases are circulating in a community, but can't identify a particular house or person as the source.
What is wastewater surveillance
A step that occurs prior to data analysis, to check for incorrect, missing or incomplete data
What is data cleaning
A disease that must be reported to public health, as per the Health Protection and Promotion Act
What is a disease of public health significance
This system relies on routine reporting by healthcare providers
What is passive surveillance
NHSN and CNISP
Hospital surveillance definitions
Surveillance priorities in this setting include UTIs, skin and wound infections and outbreaks of respiratory infections.
What is long-term care
The value calculated by adding all values in a dataset, then dividing the sum by the total number of observations
What is the mean
The proportion of true cases that are detected by the surveillance system
What is sensitivity
Laboratory reports, discharge records and pharmacy records
Infections that may require surveillance up to 90-days post-discharge
What are surgical site infections
Surveillance data can help a facility to establish these as reference points for disease occurrence
What are baseline rates
A data analysis process used to control for risk factor differences, primarily used for analysis of SSI data
What is stratification
The calculation of disease frequency that adjusts the denominator for time at risk
What is incidence density
Completed separately for patients/residents and staff, includes both rows and columns to capture information such as onset date and symptoms
What is a linelist
The type of LTC infection that is defined as a resident having 3 episodes of diarrhea, OR 2 or more episodes of vomiting in a 24 hour period
What is gastroenteritis
Communicability, prevention, morbidity and incidence
The calculation that compares the actual number of reported HAIs to the number predicted based on the standard population
What is the standardized incidence ratio (SIR)