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Infectious Disease Information Collection System at the Scene of Disaster Relief Based on a Personal Digital Assistant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Ya-Pin Li
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China The Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Beijing Military Region, Beijing, China
Hong-Wei Gao*
Affiliation:
Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), Tianjin, China Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China
Hao-Jun Fan
Affiliation:
Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), Tianjin, China Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China
Wei Wei
Affiliation:
Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), Tianjin, China Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China
Bo Xu
Affiliation:
The PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
Wen-Long Dong
Affiliation:
Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), Tianjin, China Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China
Qing-Feng Li
Affiliation:
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Beijing Military Region, Beijing, China
Wen-Jing Song
Affiliation:
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Beijing Military Region, Beijing, China
Shi-Ke Hou
Affiliation:
Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), Tianjin, China Key Laboratory of Emergency and Disaster Medicine in Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tianjin, China
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Hong-Wei Gao, Institute of Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), 220 Chenglin Street, Hedong district, Tianjin, China (e-mail: gaohongweibj@163.com).

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to build a database to collect infectious disease information at the scene of a disaster through the use of 128 epidemiological questionnaires and 47 types of options, with rapid acquisition of information regarding infectious disease and rapid questionnaire customization at the scene of disaster relief by use of a personal digital assistant (PDA).

Methods

SQL Server 2005 (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA) was used to create the option database for the infectious disease investigation, to develop a client application for the PDA, and to deploy the application on the server side. The users accessed the server for data collection and questionnaire customization with the PDA.

Results

A database with a set of comprehensive options was created and an application system was developed for the Android operating system (Google Inc, Mountain View, CA). On this basis, an infectious disease information collection system was built for use at the scene of disaster relief. The creation of an infectious disease information collection system and rapid questionnaire customization through the use of a PDA was achieved.

Conclusions

This system integrated computer technology and mobile communication technology to develop an infectious disease information collection system and to allow for rapid questionnaire customization at the scene of disaster relief. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:668–673)

Type
Original Research
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2016 

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Footnotes

Dr Li and Prof Gao contributed equally to this work.

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