The findings of our ED-SSS, the first time in Taiwan to use daily rather than weekly data, suggest further directions for research into GI syndrome and many other diseases of significant interest to public health. For example, during the 1998, 2000 and 2001 enterovirus 71 epidemics, children aged 3 years and younger who were at higher risk of severe or fatal cases of the disease were identified for more effective prevention only after the occurrence of several cases of sudden deaths from weekly sentinel physician surveillance and later retrospective epidemiological data analysis on those cases when sample size became larger. Therefore, prospective monitoring of daily ongoing data of EVI syndrome in this high risk age group and early ED-SSS detection of enterovirus activities by local public health personnel might help minimize social panic among parents. Furthermore, the results on seasonal pattern of enterovirus-like infection in our ED-SSS was consistent with the previous epidemic patterns in Taiwan, again demonstrating the usefulness of ED-SSS to avoid future large-scale or severe epidemics caused by enteroviruses [18] . In summary, these initial findings suggest that it is necessary to develop algorithms capable of detecting aberrations for different syndrome groups from patients in different geographical areas of Taiwan, taking into account variations in the levels of medical care and the effect of weekends and holidays on ER visit.