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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Google tracks flu peaks faster than the CDC

Google can calculate flu incidence peaks a week faster than other diseases surveillance systems, including that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With hospitals already stretched to capacity and using just-in-time logistics to serve patients, the seven extra days of warning could help them during a pandemic, researchers concluded.

Google Flu Trends uses search engine query data to estimate influenza activity. By counting how often Google sees 45 flu-related search queries, it estimates how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world.

The data are available in near real time, unlike previously developed surveillance systems such as call volume to telephone triage services, over-the-counter drug sales and volumes of emergency department patients with influenza-like illness.

Researchers studied correlation of Google data to influenza and crowding from an inner-city emergency department at an urban academic hospital in Baltimore from January 2009 through October 2010. Data were collected weekly for the emergency departments, the CDC, laboratory-confirmed influenza data and emergency department crowding (patient volume, number of patients who left without being seen, waiting room time, and length of stay for admitted and discharged patients). Pediatric and adult data were analyzed separately when compared to Google Flu Trends.

Results appeared online Jan. 8 at Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Google Flu Trends correlated with number of positive influenza test results (adult ED, r=0.876; pediatric ED, r=0.718) and number of emergency department patients presenting with influenza-like illness (adult ED, r=0.885; pediatric ED, r=0.652). Pediatric but not adult crowding measures, such as total emergency department volume (r=0.649) and leaving without being seen (r=0.641), also had good correlation with Google Flu Trends. Adult crowding measures for low-acuity patients, such as waiting room time (r=0.421) and length of stay for discharged patients (r=0.548), had moderate correlation.

Researchers concluded that Google Flu Trends provides near-real-time surveillance data seven to 10 days before the CDC's U.S. Influenza Sentinel Provider Surveillance Network, correlating well "but not perfectly" with flu activity.

The imperfection was that Google Flu Trends was prone to spikes caused by news coverage rather than sick people seeking information.

One flu peak was not detected by Google Flu Trends, "possibly because of the previous month's flurry of Internet activity surrounding the news coverage of the H1N1 outbreak," the authors wrote. Another flu peak recorded by Google was not mirrored in the number of patients with flu-like symptoms or positive influenza tests, and instead was probably caused by news coverage of the CDC declaring H1N1 as a national public health emergency.

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posted by Ryan DuBosar at 7:00 AM  

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Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:

Albert Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.

Zackary Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care doctor and general internist in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins. His research interests include doctor-patient communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.

CasesBlog
Ves Dimov, MD, ACP Member, is an allergist/immunologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago, where he evaluates and treats both pediatric and adult patients.

David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in integrative medicine and patient-centered care.

db's Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating medicine and the health care system.

DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about health topics for patients and health professionals.

Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for patients.

Everything Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science, medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.

FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship & Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.

Glass Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care, illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital sanctums and the people who inhabit them.

Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have difficult-to-manage esophageal problems such as refractory GERD, heartburn, and chest pain.

I'm dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning, medical informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code management, palliative care, patient-physician communication, quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.

Informatics Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics related to biomedical and health informatics.

Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.

KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites for influential health commentary.

MD Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.

Medical Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares her ideas on education, ethics in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on medicine are informed by her past experiences in caring for patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient who's had breast cancer.

More Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general practice internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal musings about medicine, life, armadillos and Sasquatch at More Musings (of a Distractible Kind).

Musing of an Internist
Justin Penn, MD, ACP Associate Member, attended medical school at the University of Washington School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine at the University of Rochester, where he is serving as Chief Resident.

Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and medical ethics, in no particular order.

Reflections of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.

Technology in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in education, social media and networking, practice management and evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge management.

White Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the intersection of science, medicine, and culture.

Other blogs of note:

American Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and community-based practice.

Clinical Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP Member, associate program director at New York University Medical Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news, commentary and more.

Interact MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news of the day.

PLoS Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a blog.

White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency room physician.

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