Electronic data capture in frontline health clinics is routine in developed countries, with benefits not only for their internal data management but also for rapid dissemination to higher levels in the public health system of critical information needed to effectively detect and combat infectious disease outbreaks. Similar benefits would be achieved by investments in low–cost electronic data capture in frontline health clinics in developing countries.

In the case of mosquito–borne dengue, the benefits of electronic data capture in frontline health clinics are at least three-fold:

• A general improvement for the capacity of dengue case data management and protection of data records from mishaps that can lead to paper records being destroyed.
• Data being more readily available for studies on local dengue epidemiology.
• Improved potential for rapid implementation of emergency mosquito vector control during dengue outbreaks through more rapid and effective communication of dengue case locations from frontline health clinics to the vector control program.

In another section of this webpage we describe a multi–disease data management system for dengue and malaria (http://rams-aid.org/DDSS/multidisease.php). Although this system could be used on stand–alone computers in frontline health clinics for capture of data relating to individual dengue patients, this would only use a small fraction of the overall capacity of the system while still requiring substantial administrative support for system implementation and maintenance. We have therefore developed a complementary software application for dengue case data, described below, which was specifically designed for implementation and use in frontline health clinics. The application handles basic patient information, clinical information, and laboratory test results, and can be freely distributed without licensing costs.

Access to the application front-end and the database back-end is password protected.

The data entry front-end is broken into three sections: basic patient information, clinical information, and laboratory test results.

The section for basic patient information includes data capture fields for:

1. patient ID number;
2. name;
3. sex;
4. age;
5. date of birth;
6. place of birth and
7. home address.

It also allows for capture of georeferenced data for the home address for mapping of case locations. The application was designed for use of Google Earth (http://www.google.com/earth/index.html) as the primary mapping option.

The section for clinical information includes data capture fields relating to:

1. symptom onset date – with auto–calculation of epidemiological week;
2. visit date;
3. initial clinical diagnosis;
4. name/identifier of reporting institution;
5. probable source location for infection;
6. symptomology – yes/no/undetermined by type of sign or symptom;
7. hospitalization – yes/no and if yes also name/identifier of hospital, intake date, release date, and outcome of hospitalization;
8. name of the attending physician; and
9. final diagnosis.

The section for laboratory test results includes data capture fields relating to:

1. samples - ID number, type of sample, and date when it was taken; and
2. laboratory analysis - ID number, date of analysis, diagnostic test method, test result, and dengue virus serotype.

The user can enter results for multiple tests for a single sample.

To minimize data entry error, data entry fields make extensive use of dates selected from pop-up calendars and terms selected from drop-down menus. These terms originate from configurable catalogs stored in the application database.

Data can be exported from the database as .csv or .xls files.

The Dengue Case Data application is licensed under the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), which is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

For feedback or questions, please contact Saul Lozano-Fuentes: slozano@colostate.edu

Funding to develop the Dengue Case Data application was provided by the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (http://www.ivcc.com/).