Surveillance Tools
While the central focus of USAID's
infectious disease surveillance strategy is on creating a
conducive behavioral environment for the use of information
in the decision making process, there is a need for specific
tools to facilitate the collection, analysis, interpretation,
presentation and use of information. Several important characteristics
need to be considered with respect to surveillance tools:
- Local application. Tools, whether they are analytical
software or presentation guidelines, need to be tailored
to the specific needs of the country in which they are
to be applied and be culturally appropriate and technically
relevant to that setting.
- Appropriate technology. Surveillance tools need
to support the technology that is most appropriate to
the specific setting. That technology needs to be sustainable
under reasonable conditions for that country and be the
most effective way for the user to process the information,
given those conditions.
- Appropriate to the level of use. Surveillance
is a function that reaches from communities to global
networks. Tools need to take into account the degree of
technical sophistication at each level and be designed
to be appropriate for the technical capabilities of the
health worker at that level.
- Take advantage of existing tools. Whenever possible,
surveillance systems should try to draw on existing tools
rather than reinventing new tools each time a need is
identified. Adaptation to the local setting may be necessary
to make the tool suitable, but it is not always necessary
to develop the entire tool from scratch.
- Regional and global standardization. Tools should
be consistent with both regional and global standards
to the extent that this is possible and desirable. An
example would be "case definitions". In order
to promote better use of surveillance information, standard
case definitions should always be used.
Surveillance tools can be extremely
useful in assisting countries to be able to collect, interpret
and use information in a timely and effective manner. Tools
represent an aid to doing surveillance but in and of themselves
they will not resolve the surveillance problems in countries.
There must exist a desire to use the tool, and at the root
of that desire is a belief in the value of information and
how information can contribute to better health outcomes.
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