Assessing the Work Practices and Information Needs of Disease Investigators

Investigation of infectious disease cases requires support from protocols, distributed and cooperative work, and information systems. We used form and protocol reviews together with qualitative research to study public health work practices, data requirements, and information needs. We found that the forms and protocols did not fully align, and that current information systems were limited in their ability support data analysis. We propose that better alignment between protocols, work practices, and system functionality such as integrated information visualization will improve the disease investigation process.