Facilitation and documentation of focus group discussions with protagonists (physicians, employees of health authorities and Laender authorities, employees of laboratories) of the project DEMIS (Electronic Outbreak Surveillance in Germany).

Content:

The Protection Against Infection Act provides for a system for reporting communicable diseases by physicians/hospitals/laboratories to the relevant health authority that transmits defined data to the Laender authorities and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). A standardized, user-friendly and user-orientated information exchange system should be drawn up and introduced that will increase reporting compliance and will support an early identification of unexpected outbreaks through a greater flexibility.

In this context, the RKI carries out a series of focus group discussions with protagonists of the reporting system in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the current reporting system and to determine the needs of the protagonists for the future system. The results will contribute to the development of a specification document that will serve as the basis for the introduction of the new national system.

• Preparation of the programme in terms of content and methodology in collaboration with the RKI project members;
• Facilitation of a planning workshop;
• Preparation and follow-up of the focus group discussions with DEMIS protagonists;
• Facilitation of the workshops and focus group discussions;
• Analysis of the workshops;
• Reporting to the RKI project members and workshop participants (final reports).