Feedback from the NMFP on Member States actions

14th National Microbiology Focal Points meeting

Amanda Ozin, Senior Expert, Office of the Chief ScientistEuropean Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

14th NMFP, Stockholm, 12-13 May 2016

1

Method to receive feedback for NMFP14

• Prepared questions (open and closed) using “EUSurvey” tool

• Sent to NMFPs April 28th by NMFP newsletter and follow-up emails with link and password

• Requested replies by May 5th

• Questions covered:

− Dissemination and use of EULabCap reports (2013 data)

− Suggestions for future capacity building support

• TODAY - Presentation of feedback to stimulate discussion!

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“Impact survey” on the EULabCap reports

• Response rate: 22/30 (70%) NMFPs

• Dissemination: EU and Country reports (2013 data):

− 21/22 disseminated the reports in their country

• Usefulness: Country reports

− 21/22 replied “YES” the country reports were useful and provided helpful comments for further improvements;

− 15/22 indicated practical use of the country report in indicated areas for attention

• Suggestions for follow-up and improvements

− 21/22 provided at least 1 suggestion (ca. 60 comments in total).

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Thank you for your contribution!

…. and we will leave the survey open for a week for anyone that would still like to contribute ideas

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How were the EULabCap reports (2013 data) disseminated in your country?21/22 NMFPs disseminated the reports

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Other way(s) of dissemination

Did not disseminate the report(s)

Shared/made available nationally

Translated into national language (partially or fully)

Discussed with microbiologists involved in publichealth

Discussed with infectious disease epidemiologists

Communicated to decision makers

Dissemination to: EU report Country report Both

Number of NMFP

5

Did you find the EULabCap individual country report (2013 data) useful?

• Yes = 21

• No = 1

• Please explain (21/22 replies)

− “It is always useful, although often not nice, to see our deficiencies at European background”

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Did you follow-up on any of the suggested areas of attention from the EULabCapindividual country report (2013 data)?

*15/22 NMFPs indicated action in areas of attention of the country report

Area of attentionFollow-up

action*(n=22)

No follow-up action 7

NRL accreditation 6

Biosafety regulation and monitoring 5

Regulation of NRL services (e.g. appointments and operations) 5

Resource allocation to NRL services (e.g. funding, staffing, equipment) 5

Clinical laboratory accreditation 4

Diagnostic testing guidance development 4

Sharing molecular typing data via TESSy 4

Diagnostic test use rate measurement (priority diseases) 3

Regulation of clinical microbiology laboratories 2

Diagnostic testing guidance compliance measurement 2

Automation of reporting laboratory data to public health surveillance databases 2

Other follow-up action(s) 2

Involvement of NRL experts in national outbreak investigations 1

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Country report use (14 comments)

• Benchmarking with other EU countries (6/14)

• Areas for attention and strengths particularly useful (8/14)

• Some examples :

– “Acknowledging and discussing problems for planning future actions and reassurance of strengths”

– “Framework for improvements (e.g. quality NRLs)”

– “Focus on low capability areas…”

– “Broad overview of national situation”

– “Design/evaluation of national performance indicators”

– “Systematic way to monitor change annually”

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Report follow-up (6 comments)

• ECDCs role in supporting NMFP advocate areas of attention to decision makers and national laboratory community

• Examples :

– “ECDC active approach to decision makers in MS would be useful in cases where clear that major improvements are needed … in legislation, nominations of reference institutions, preparations of different national plans...”.

– “Strongly recommend ECDC support MS focal points (epi+lab) to be active members of working groups in the MoH (…to influence decision making and working plans)”

– “Strongly advise decision makers to accomplish agreed tasks”

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In your opinion, which areas could ECDC develop new activities in addressing generic laboratory capacity/capability issues?

• 21/22 respondents provided at least 1 suggestion

• ca. 60 comments in total that were grouped for presentation as follows:

− Information Broker;

− Technical support and advice;

− Strategy and advocacy;

− No areas (as of yet);

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ECDC To Do list: Information broker

• Repository of information

− “Twinning projects between laboratories of different countries”

− “Develop catalogue of lab tests available in EU laboratories…EULabServe progress”

• Recommendations on best practices

− “Collaboration between epidemiological structures and laboratories for outbreak investigation, surveillance of VPD and vector-borne infections, molecular epidemiology”

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ECDC To Do list: Technical support and advice

• Public health application of molecular methods

– “assist with the transition to whole genome sequencing

• NRLs and EQAs

− “assess regional/supranational cooperation; twinning programmes especially for rare pathogens”

− “updating existing EQA and need for new schemes”

• Technology assessment

– “Collaboration with agencies involved in monitoring quality of IVD reagents and/or make the recommendation for the NRLs to develop such activities”

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ECDC To Do list: Strategy and advocacy

• “Encourage countries to take a proactive role on areas where improvement clearly needed”

• “Highlight to EU decision makers where the weaknesses lie in ability to respond to new and emerging threats”

• “Develop an ECDC action plan at EU level”

• “Establishment of various working groups with all MS to better use collected micro and epi data”

• “Link more closely the results of EULabCap back to the laboratory networks funded by EU”

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No need for additional ECDC work

• “Time to cope with the recognized <needs > in our country”

• “Time to digest information and execute NMFP role”

• “Finalize first those actions that are already started” (data analysis and feedback to countries for use – e.g. Listeriatyping by NGS …)

Impact of the EULabCap 2013 report - Press and social media

Session 5 – part 2

Signe Gilbro, Communication Officer Web and Social Media,

Public Health Capacity and Communication UnitEuropean Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

14th NMFP, Stockholm, 12-13 May 2016

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Technical Report Publication

• Facts:

– In top 25 ECDC publications during February 2016

– Accessed via Google and links in targeted e-mailsVisitors also came from: EC, Eurosurveillance and ESCV

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News item

• Facts:

− Among the top 15 ECDC News items in February 2016

− Around 600 views and 490 visitors

− Accessed via links on Twitter, targeted e-mails, Google and LinkedIn

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EULabCap page with maps

• Facts:

– Ranking high among ECDC

pages

– 1059 page views, 426

visitors (Top 81 out of 2000)

– Accessed via Google, e-mails,

LinkedIn, Twitter,

Eurosurveillance and

eucast.org

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Social media – LinkedIn

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Social media - Twitter

• Facts:

– Popularity: Lot of people clicked to get to the news item and maps page

– Who retweeted? Mostly public health agencies, journalists, doctors, microbiologists, professors, biotechnology companies, scientists

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Lessons learned

• Main professional audience reached via social media activities and targeted e-mails

• Continued update of maps page

• Media attention low

• To reach a wider audience:

– Policy briefing for policy makers

– Peer review paper

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Thank you for listening,

ECDC.Microbiology@ecdc.europa.eu

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Discussion

Questions? Comments? Reflections on needs for follow-up capacity

building?