The French communicable diseases computer network

The authors give a brief review of a seven-year experiment of national surveillance of communicable diseases in France using computer networking technology. The information system (IS), developed by the French Communicable Diseases Computer Network (FCDN), provides the large amount of epidemiological information needed for surveillance activities and permits the information exchanges necessary for efficient decision making. Besides the surveillance of notifiable diseases the FCDN operates its own surveillance network which relies on sentinel general practitioners (SGPs). The epidemiological database contains estimates per SGP, department, region, and France per week, month, quarter, half-year, and year. To improve the analysis of the data collected by the SGPs, the FCDN has developed several specific tools which increase the decision support capabilities of the IS. The early detection system is based on a time-series analysis