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Principal Investigator:  Jon Temte, MD, PhD

PI Department:  Family Medicine

Summary of Study:  Key components of public health surveillance systems include accuracy, affordability, and timeliness.  Any individual system can enhance one or two of these key elements, but usually at the expense of the other.  New and innovative, point-of-care diagnostic technology may offer a complementary solution to influenza surveillance allowing timeliness, accuracy and affordability.  Rapid influenza detection tests (RIDT) in clinical practices, coupled with real-time reporting of all results (positive and negative) to public health, may eliminate the lag time that plagues most surveillance system.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to increase accuracy of surveillance relating to seasonal and pandemic influenza.

Study Design:  The project will pilot the use of aRapid influenza Detection Test (RIDT) in clinical practices, coupled with real-time reporting of all results (positive and negative) to public health agencies.  Study personnel will deploy Quidel Sofia RIDT with wireless connectivity in a total of 20 primary care practices located across Wisconsin.  This set of sites will include two sites already using the wireless Sofia array and two additional surveillance sites currently participating in the CDC/CSTE Influenza Incidence Surveillance Program (IISP).  The sixteen additional sites will be recruited by the Wisconsin Research and Education Network (WREN) and include rural, suburban and urban practices, strategically located across Wisconsin’s public health regions.

The four IISP sites will continue to collect paired nasal and NP swabs from all patients presenting with ARI within 7 days of onset (per IISP protocol).  Nasal swabs will be tested on-site for influenza using Sofia RIDT.

DFM Clinic(s):  Any clinics choosing to participate

DFM Contact:  Jon Temte, MD, PhD

Study Contact Person:
Shari Barlow
Study Coordinator
265-4348
shari.barlow@fammed.wisc.edu

Date of Approval:   June 2013

Dates of Study:  June, 2013-June 2014