Using Date of Symptom Onset to Classify Healthcare-Associated Infections

We have analyzed the use of date of onset to classify patients developing symptoms while in the hospital as having acquired disease in the community or in the hospital setting. This analysis shows that we can predict the performance of this system, and choose optimal classification rules, if we know the incubation period of the disease in question and the relative risk of acquiring the disease in the community and hospital settings.

We have developed a software application, the classifying window calculator to aid those interested in using this methodology.

The windows application is available here.

The exported eclipse package, containing the Java source code, is available here.

A brief manual is available here.