1. Leveraging Clinical IT for Dengue: Opportunities for Tomorrow
Nawanan Theera-Ampornpunt, M.D., Ph.D.
Abstract
There have been increasing concerns about the rise in magnitude of the dengue problem
worldwide in recent years. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines
on diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of dengue, with implementation strategies
consisting of dengue surveillance; case management; outbreak response; integrated vector
management; social mobilization and communication for dengue; and dengue research.
Information technology (IT) has been recognized as one of the tools important for disease
surveillance in the population, but few if any explored the roles of IT in the clinical settings
in clinical management of dengue cases. This presentation offers this rarely-discussed
perspective by exploring how clinical IT, such as clinical decision support systems could be
leveraged to assist in clinicians’ effective management of dengue. Potential roles of IT to be
discussed include use of alerts, reminders, online templates for complete patient assessment,
decision support tools for management of patients in each dengue classification, electronic
disease reporting to public health authorities, and integrating clinical data from disparate
providers for early detection of an epidemic. The feasibility and values of these proposed
roles of IT depend on its implementation and formal evaluation studies, but this presentation
calls for more emphasis on this little-studied area.