Effectiveness of the Integrated TB Surveillance System — China, 2018–2019

Abstract

Summary What is already known about this topic? China’s national health information system provides important support and means for deepening the country’s medical and health reform, for improving relevant delivery services, for enhancing the level of scientific management of health, and for promoting the goal of basic medical and health services for everyone in China. What is added by this report? To further the construction of the national health information system, the National Center for Tuberculosis Control and Prevention of China CDC, started a pilot project for a new tuberculosis (TB) integrated health (iHealth) surveillance system, which was integrated with regional health information platforms. The goal was to explore automatic data exchange between hospitals and disease control facilities to reduce the workload of data-entry. What are the implications for public health practice? This pilot proved that data sharing and automatic exchanges between different information systems can be achieved through a unified surveillance dataset, which could provide a reference point for the construction of surveillance systems for other infectious diseases or for the entire public health information system.