GPS go hi-tech to help identify flu ‘hot spots’

THE number of ill people turning up to Wellington GPs with flu symptoms will be closely monitored this winter in an effort to identify flu ‘‘hot spots’’ and make sure practices have enough doctors and nurses to cope.

The plan, using new technology that automatically accesses patient records, applies lessons learned from the 2009 swine flu pandemic, when GPs were so busy they could not keep track of flu cases in real time.

The information, collected daily, will also help practices decide when to create a separate flu waiting room before they become swamped.

‘‘We’ve already

noticed

that

some practices on the Kapiti Coast have seen a sustained increase in general respiratory complaints in the last few weeks,’’ said Chris Kerr, clinical director of primary health organisation Compass Health, which has created the software with the University of Otago.

‘‘This has allowed us to check in with those practices and ensure that they are coping with the increased demand on their services.’’

Though the program uses patient records, information identifying individual patients would not be extracted.

The software, which will be used at 100 general practices in the lower North Island, uses a computer algorithm to automatically identify flu symptoms from GP notes, rather than relying on GPs to record the information manually, which takes up valuable time during flu outbreaks.

Practices coped well with the influx of flu patients during the 2009 pandemic by concentrating on treating flu patients and putting off other non-essential or less urgent tasks, director of research and tech innovation Jayden MacRae said.

But it was during those times that information collection was most needed. ‘‘The time when we most need comprehensive data on presentations of flu-like illness is also the very time when manual recording systems take a back seat.’’

Otago University’s Lynn McBain said the software would allow researchers to ‘‘unlock the wealth of information’’ routinely collected by GPs and to assess what the data shows.