Johns Hopkins: Google Tool Could Help Hospitals Prepare for Flu-Related ED Surges

Monitoring Internet traffic may serve as a better means of predicting surges in emergency departments due to influenza than waiting for government flu case reports, according to a news release from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

For their study, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine tracked and reviewed Google Flu Trends data for Baltimore as well as data on people seeking care at Johns Hopkins Hospital emergency departments from Jan. 2009-Oct. 2010.

The researchers reported a strong correlation between a rise in Internet searches for flu information, compiled by Google's Flu Trends tool, and a subsequent rise in people coming into emergency rooms complaining of flu-like symptoms.

Currently, healthcare providers rely on CDC flu case reports provided during October-May as a key way to track flu outbreaks. However, researchers reported that such flu case reports can often be weeks old by the time they reach practitioners and hospitals.

Johns Hopkins researchers hope to develop a highly reliable flu surveillance model that emergency departments could use to reasonably predict an increase in flu-like cases. Such a system could help hospitals prepare by beefing up staffing or opening up patient annexes, researchers said.

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