A new article looks at whether hospital staff flu-like illnesses can help improve hospital preparedness for influenza-like outbreaks.

The ability to estimate the burden of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) is essential to informing hospital preparedness and treatment policies.

The article, to be published in BMC Infectious Diseases, looks at how assessing hospital staff influenza-like absences (ILA) (e.g. absences due to colds and flus) might improve readiness of hospitals to deal with such outbreaks.

Data of hospital staff ILA were compared to surveillance data of ILI in primary care cases and data of lab confirmed  cases from hospitalised patients. The article found that rates of hospital ILA appeared to have the potential as a simple syndromic surveillance tool to improve estimates of flu-like outbreaks and could provide an early warning for hospitals.

To read the article click here.