Modern public health surveillance brings together laboratory data, hospital discharge data, GP disease diagnoses data and risk factor data and can present it in a traditional epidemiological analysis or in a geographic format. With information on the health status of the population within their immediate environment, GPs have their foot on the first step of the ladder to being advocates for community health. The historic role of the family doctor is a person immersed in the health of their community. However, 20th century advances in drug treatments and technological intervention have diluted that role into one of the 15-minute consult and prescription. Surveillance information gives GP the tools to take up the mantle of community leadership and, in the process, broaden their professional interest and reclaim community status.
Surveillance offers secondary care services a similar view from the bridge.
Hospitals are data rich but analysis poor, with few links or 'thinks'outside their own walls. Surveillance systems offer clinical planners the opportunity to view trends and act in a timely manner. They also offer managers new scope to analyse those investments made outside the hospital that are designed to manage demand. Examples of such investments are the Auckland influenza surveillance system, which provides weekly updates of influenza levels to clinicians and hospital mangers, and a recent call by South Auckland Health for more investment in the wider community health sector to reduce hospital admissions. Applied Epidemiology Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease.