Surveillance for the Rare Condition of Sickle Cell Disease in Wisconsin

Despite universal newborn screening, there is no comprehensive surveillance system to understand the sickle cell disease population in Wisconsin.

We initiated the development of a sickle cell disease surveillance system by linking newborn screening data and electronic health records from 2 large tertiary health care institutions in Wisconsin: Children's Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital.

There were 1478 individuals within the 3 data sources. One hundred thirty-two (82%) of 159 identified by newborn screening from 2013 through 2019 received care at Children's Wisconsin. The majority of individuals with sickle cell disease at Children's Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital resided in Milwaukee County.

The new surveillance program will increase our understanding of the sickle cell disease population in Wisconsin and help improve quality of care and health outcomes.