How Analytics Can Help During Flu Outbreaks

Every year, thousands of children are hospitalized because of the flu; several dozen to more than 100 children die each year from complications. In the 2019-2020 flu season, there have already been six pediatric deaths from the virus. Experts say this flu season has been off to a strange start, and may peak earlier than usual.

It’s important for health providers not only to know which children need to be vaccinated, but also to understand where there are flu outbreaks and how they might need to readjust their staffing to deal with surges in flu patients. How can they do so? Let’s take a look.

3 ways analytics can help

Analytics can enable healthcare providers make more informed and smarter decisions when it comes to the flu. Here are three ways data can help.

Vaccines

Analytics solutions such as Diver Platform can pull data out of your EHR on which children have been vaccinated for certain conditions (such as the flu), and which children have not been vaccinated. As a result, staff can be notified when children are not up to date on their vaccine schedules and can proactively contact them for appointments. This is especially important for children with certain conditions such as asthma or other illnesses that weaken their immune systems.

Monitoring outbreaks

Analytics can also monitor flu diagnoses from the EHR and map them on a heatmap. This can provide a visual look at which areas are seeing the most flu patients, and can allow your organization to staff physicians’ offices accordingly. For example, if you notice more flu patients in one coverage area, offices in that location can adjust their hours to stay open later or on the weekends, or you can send additional staff to that area to better service patients.

Example of a heat map in Diver Platform

Coordination between hospital and clinics

Similarly, you can use analytics to track symptoms of patients who are coming in, and communicate those symptoms out to your clinics. That way your staff will be better prepared to treat patients and understand the characteristics of an outbreak.

Other flu resources

In addition, you can use data outside of your EHR to help provide your staff with information during flu season. For example, the CDC provides national flu trends data which is available in a downloadable format if you want to manipulate and visualize it yourself. It is also available in a map format. The graphic below shows the CDC data over a period of six weeks in October and November of 2019, displaying the increase in flu reports over that period.