Investigation of quality of communicable disease reporting in medical institutions in Tianjin, 2013

Objective To evaluate the quality of notifiable communicable disease reporting in medical institutions in Tianjin. Methods The survey was conducted in medical institutions in Tianjin from January to September, 2013 by examining medical records and case survey. The underreporting rate, timeliness rate, completeness and accuracy of reporting cards and concordance rate of electronic reporting were evaluated. Results A total of 690 cases were surveyed. The overall underreporting rate was 2.17% , the underreporting rate was 2.33% for diseases in class B and 1.97% for disease in class C(2=0.10, P=0.75).The overall timeliness rate was 99.11%, the completeness and accuracy of reporting cards were 98.67% and 75.56%, the concordance rate of electronic reporting was 93.93%. Conclusion The overall underreporting rate of communicable diseases in medical institutions in Tianjin was low and the application of electronic recording system varied. It is necessary to improve the reporting quality by strengthening supervision and training, improving the application of electronic recoding system for the purpose of reduction of underreporting and increase of the reporting rate of notifiable communicable diseases.