Quality of notifiable communicable diseases reporting in medical institutions in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, 2009-2010

Objective To evaluate the quality of notifiable communicable diseases reporting in Huzhou from 2009 to 2010 and provide evidence for the improvement of communicable diseases reporting. Methods According to the National survey protocol of communicable diseases underreporting and National supervision protocol of network direct reporting of communicable diseases. the analysis was conducted on the reporting quality and underreporting of communicable diseases in selected medical institutions in Huzhou. Results The underreporting rate of communicable diseases was 0.33% in Huzhou from 2009 to 2010. The underreporting rate was 0.13% for Class B diseases and 0.55% for class C diseases. The diseases which were underreported included rubella (3.33%), mumps (1.20%), gonorrhea (0.71%) and other infectious diarrheal diseases (0.33%). No underreporting was found in medical institutions at or above county level, and the underreporting rate was 15.38% in private medical institutions and 4.48% in township medical institutions. The overall timeliness rate, the completeness rate, the accurate rate and the consistent rate of the reporting were 100%, 98.24%, 97.97% and 96.58% respectively. The completeness rate and accurate rate in private medical institutions were both 100%, and the two rates were 99.79% and 99.37% in medical institutions at municipal level and 92.78% and 91.75% in medical institutions at township level. The consistent rates of reporting were 98.52%, 96.62%, 88.66% and 81.82% in medical institutions at municipal level, county level, township level and in private medical institutions respectively. Conclusion Although the underreporting rate was low,it is still necessary to further improve the reporting quality by strengthening the management, supervision and training to avoid underreporting.