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Disease surveillance via smartphones cheaper, faster vs. paper-based surveys
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Researchers from the Kenya Ministry of Health and the CDC have found that using smartphones was cheaper, faster and more accurate at gathering information for disease surveillance than traditional paper survey methods.
“Collecting data using smartphones has improved the quality of our data and given us a faster turnaround time to work with it,” Henry Njuguna, MD, sentinel surveillance coordinator at CDC Kenya, said in a press release. “It also helped us save on the use of paper and other limited resources.”
The data were presented at the International Conference on Emerging Diseases in Atlanta this week.
Njuguna and colleagues compared survey data collection methods across four influenza surveillance sites in Kenya. Surveillance officers identified those with respiratory illness and administered a brief questionnaire. Patients were given a paper-based questionnaire or a smartphone questionnaire using an HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone with a software program called Field Adapted Survey Toolkit.
Of the 2,038 questionnaires included in the study, 1,019 were paper-based questionnaires and 1,019 were smartphone questionnaires. Three percent of the smartphone questionnaires were incomplete vs. 5% of the paper-based questionnaires.
Seven paper-based questionnaires had duplicated patient identification numbers, but the smartphone questionnaires had none. Data from smartphone questionnaires were uploaded within 8 hours vs. an average of 24 days for paper-based questionnaires to be uploaded.
Although the fixed cost to implement the smartphone questionnaire program was higher ($16,480 vs. $12,990 for implementing the paper-based questionnaire program), the cost of collecting data via smartphones was lower overall. For 2 years, the cost of operating a paper-based questionnaire system was $61,830 compared with $45,546 for a smartphone questionnaire system.
For more information:
- Njuguna HN. Are smartphones better than paper-based questionnaires for surveillance data collection? Presented at: International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases; March 11-14, 2012; Atlanta.
Disclosure: Dr. Njuguna reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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