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Author Notes:

Address for reprints: Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH, RAND Corporation, 1200 South Hayes St, Arlington, VA 22202; 703-413-1100, ext. 5504, fax 703-413-8111 alk@rand.org

Supervising editor: Amy H. Kaji, MD, PhD

Contributors include, but are not limited to, Larry Baraff, MD, T. Christopher Bond, PhD, Holley Butkovich, Lorenzo DiFrancesco, MD, Barry Diner, MD, Alexandra Drane, Harvey Fineberg, MD, John Gallagher, MD, Lewis Goldfrank, MD, Lynn R. Goldman, PhD, Michael Handrigan, Kara Jacobsen, MA, John A. Jernigan, MD, Nicholas Jouriles, MD, Rebecca Katz, PhD, Priscilla Keith, JD, Naghma Khan, MD, Steve Krug, MD, Adam Landman, MD, Hal C. Lawrence, MD, Linda Lawrence, MD, Weimin Lu, MBA, Nicole Lurie, MD, Gene W. Matthews, MD, Meg McCoy, JD, John A. Mitas, MD, Arnold S. Monto, MD, Robert Nadolski, Kristine Nash-Wong, Andy Pope, PhD, Ian Portelli, MD, Lynne Richardson, MD, Andrew Roszak, JD, EMT-P, Jeffrey Runge, MD, Judith Salerno, PhD, Harold Simon, MD, Joseph Stubbs, MD, Todd Taylor, MD, Reed Tuckson, MD, Silas Smith, MD, and Charlotte Yeh, MD.

Subjects:

Research Funding:

This work was supported in part by a contract from the Georgia Division of Public Health and grants from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and the de Beaumont Foundation.

Keywords:

  • Science & Technology
  • Life Sciences & Biomedicine
  • Emergency Medicine

Web-Based Self-Triage of Influenza-Like Illness During the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic

Tools:

Journal Title:

Annals of Emergency Medicine

Volume:

Volume 56, Number 3

Publisher:

, Pages 288-294

Type of Work:

Article | Final Publisher PDF

Abstract:

The sudden emergence of 2009 H1N1 influenza in the spring of that year sparked a surge in visits to emergency departments in New York City and other communities. A larger, second wave of cases was anticipated the following autumn. To reduce a potential surge of health system utilization without denying needed care, we enlisted the input of experts from medicine, public health, nursing, information technology, and other disciplines to design, test, and deploy clinical algorithms to help minimally trained health care workers and laypeople make informed decisions about care-seeking for influenza-like illness. The product of this collaboration, named Strategy for Off-Site Rapid Triage (SORT) was disseminated in 2 forms. Static algorithms, posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site, offered guidance to clinicians and telephone call centers on how to manage adults and children with influenza-like illness. In addition, 2 interactive Web sites, http://www.Flu.gov and http://www.H1N1ResponseCenter.com, were created to help adults self-assess their condition and make an informed decision about their need for treatment. Although SORT was anchored in a previously validated clinical decision rule, incorporated the input of expert clinicians, and was subject to small-scale formative evaluations during rapid standup, prospective evaluation is lacking. If its utility and safety are confirmed, SORT may prove to be a useful tool to blunt health system surge and rapidly collect epidemiologic data on future disease outbreaks. © 2010 American College of Emergency Physicians.

Copyright information:

© 2010 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

This is an Open Access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Universal : Public Domain Dedication License (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).
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