An infection preventionist sets up an electronic report within the EMR to identify cases with GI symptoms and notifies the health department. What type of surveillance is this?

• A. Syndromic
• B. Laboratory-based
• C. Active case finding
• D. Sentinel

Answer: (A)

Syndromic surveillance focuses on signal detection from symptom patterns rather than confirmed laboratory results. By configuring an EMR to flag gastrointestinal symptoms and notify the health department, this setup uses real-time, symptom-based data to identify potential outbreaks and trigger public health action. It relies on clinical presentations (GI symptoms) as the alert signal, not on lab confirmations, which is why it’s different from laboratory-based surveillance. It isn’t about actively seeking cases through field investigations, so it’s not active case finding. And it isn’t based on data from a few sentinel sites to infer broader trends, so it isn’t sentinel surveillance.