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Featured Research
This page features research conducted by RAND Health research staff that has been published in a scholarly journal.Measuring the Performance of Telephone-Based Disease Surveillance Systems in Local Health Departments
Dausey DJ, Chandra A, Schaefer AG, Bahney B, Haviland A, Zakowski S, Lurie N. American Journal of Public Health, [Epub Jan 2 2008], Vol. 98, No. 9, Sept 2008, pp. 1706-1711.
Read article (may require registration or payment on American Journal of Public Health website)
Objectives
We tested telephone-based disease surveillance systems in local health departments to identify system characteristics associated with consistent and timely responses to urgent case reports.
Methods
We identified a stratified random sample of 74 health departments and conducted a series of unannounced tests of their telephone-based surveillance systems. We used regression analyses to identify system characteristics that predicted fast connection with an action officer (an appropriate public health professional).
Results
Optimal performance in consistently connecting callers with an action officer in 30 minutes or less was achieved by 31% of participating health departments. Reaching a live person upon dialing, regardless of who that person was, was the strongest predictor of optimal performance both in being connected with an action officer and in consistency of connection times.
Conclusions
Health departments can achieve optimal performance in consistently connecting a caller with an action officer in 30 minutes or less and may improve performance by using a telephone-based disease surveillance system in which the phone is answered by a live person at all times.
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