The Effect of Established Hospital Surveillance Unit on the Contagious Diseases Reports

Objective: Surveillance is systematic data gathering, classification, analysis and interpretation, so that the data can be distributed to those who need this information. If there exists unreliability for the incidence of the diseases, the studies to prevent the contagious diseases are not effective and community health is affected negatively. For this reason, the Ministry of Health of Turkish Rebuplic has required the establishment of surveillance units. In our hospital, this unit was established in January 2016. In this study, the number of contagious diseases reports has been evaluated, with the help of the established surveillance unit. Material and Method: The contagious diseases reported in the years 2015 and 2016, were evaluated retrospectively. Results: While during 2015, 44 cases of contagious diseases were reported, this number reached 411 in 2016. This difference was statistically significant when the number of hospital admissions was taken into consideration (p<0.00001). Whilst the Public Health Laboratory results were not followed up during the year 2015, the results were followed up in 2016 and based on these results, 87 patients were reported. While only four acid-resistant bacteria were reported during 2015, in 2016 this number had reached 14. With the pathology reports screening, the number of tuberculous-compatible cases was 17 in 2015, while it was 86 in 2016. While there were no laboratory reports in 2015, in 2016, there were 14 reports. Conclusion: With the active working of surveillance unit, reporting of contagious diseases has significantly increased. These reports are necessary in development of disease prevention policies, which is a very important public health issue