4 Local surveillance systems

Local surveillance is the cornerstone of all AMR surveillance networks. Data collected by local surveillance sites are used to inform local decision-making and can also be reported centrally to a national system to provide a national overview of AMR. How surveillance is carried out can vary widely, but Figure 5 (Seale et al., 2017) is a good representation of how such systems look at a local level, and how they link into national systems.

Figure 5 An example of a local AMR surveillance process.

Show description|Hide description

A flow chart, with arrows between a series of boxes and circles. The first box is labelled ‘Sampling’. The next circle is labelled ‘Specimen’. The next box is labelled ‘Laboratory testing organism ID, antimicrobial susceptibility testing’. The next circle is labelled ‘Result’. The next box is labelled ‘Surveillance network’.There is an arrow going back from ‘Result’ to ‘Sampling’ that is labelled ‘Inform care: choice of antibiotics, further testing; informs local guidlines/policies’, and ‘Surveillance network’ has a note: ‘Uses data to inform regional/national policies’.

Figure 5 An example of a local AMR surveillance process.

In order to ensure consistent results across different surveillance sites or sectors participating in the surveillance network, it is important that standard procedures are used in each of these steps. If different methods or standards of testing are used in different local laboratories then the results cannot be easily compared or interpreted alongside one another. You will look in more detail at the importance of standardisation and quality assurance in the Quality assurance and AMR surveillance module. The importance of standardisation and quality assurance in how the data are managed, analysed, reported and interpreted are covered in depth in the Fundamentals of data for AMR and Processing and analysing AMR data modules.