The University of Hong Kong Influenza Surveillance Dashboard is a specific illustrative application to prospective influenza surveillance in Hong Kong. It is developed by the influenza research team, School of Public Health, the University of Hong Kong.

Digital dashboards (also known as executive dashboards) describe computerized interactive tools typically used by managers to visually ascertain the status (or "health") of their business via key performance indicators. In the most general sense, digital dashboards simply describe systems for the visual (i.e. graphical) presentation of key indicators in appropriate context allowing rapid interpretation by an end user. A dynamic dashboard can be made interactive and user-friendly by allowing extraction of information in different perspectives and contexts, such as plots stratified by age group, district or time period, or with options allowing users to display multiple data streams such as previous years data. By investing in the design of data dissemination, the quality in presentation and communication of data by local health authorities could be improved to exceed world-class level.

Key Features

We synthesized the literature on dashboard design and produced a summary of key features for effective dissemination in a dashboard, specific to the area of prospective disease surveillance. With expert input from experienced website developers, we developed efficient code to integrate back-end database and outputs in a digital dashboard format. The dashboard can update and integrate timely data from different sources, concentrating on the most relevant information preferably on a single screen. The graphical presentation is self-explanatory accompanied with clear labels. Interactive options are included allowing users to dig into their area of interests.

Influenza activity indicators

1. Weekly average consultation rate for influenza-like illness (ILI) among sentinel family medicine clinics (FMC).
   Data source: Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, HKSAR
2. Weekly average consultation rate for influenza-like illness (ILI) among sentinel private medical practitioner (PMP) clinics.
   Data source: Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, HKSAR
3. Positive percentage of influenza detections among respiratory specimens in laboratory surveillance.
   Data source: Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, HKSAR
4. Weekly average of all-cause school absenteeism rate in Hong Kong.
   Data source: BroadLearning Education (Asia) Ltd.
5. Weekly average admission rate of 0-5-year-old children with a principal diagnosis of influenza in public hospitals.
   Data source: Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, HKSAR

To summarize the overall influenza activity, the overall influenza index synthesizes the levels, trends and numbers of samples size from the above indicators to generate a combined index.

The dashboard can potentially add more data streams, such as fevers in elderly care homes, absenteeism in childcare centres, and ILI consultations with Chinese medical practitioners. All these data are published online on the website of Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health.