[Hospitalization with or for COVID-19: which surveillance indicator to choose?]

In the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, the monitoring of epidemiological surveillance indicators is a central issue.

We were able to describe the monitoring of the epidemic of hospitalized patients in the department of Alpes-Maritimes from three data sources: 1) Santé Publique France (SPF) via the SI-VIC software, 2) the Regional Health Agency (ARS Paca) with conventional hospitalization or department critical care data taken from SI-VIC, adjusting them to those of the Health Establishments (ES), 3) The ES of Alpes-Maritimes associated with the ARS of Alpes-Maritimes and the Department of Public Health (DSP) of the CHU, with the collection of patients hospitalized in the conventional sector or in critical/intensive care in the dedicated COVID-19 beds. The aim of this study was to verify the consistency of these three information systems.

We observed disparities between the number of cases of hospitalization of SPF and the data from ES/ARS/DSP. We did not observe any differences in patients hospitized in intensive care/critical care units. The Scientific Council uses SPF data on the number of hospitalizations or intensive/critical beds to justify its recommendations.However, SPF data from SI-VIC have associated patients hospitalized for COVID and patients who tested positive for PCR, but whose reason for hospitalization is not related to SARS-CoV2 infection (formerly infected or asymptomatic patients).

We believe that hospital surveillance indicators should only take into account the number of patients in conventional hospitalization or resuscitation for a COVID-19 infection.