Our job was to come up with an easier way for frontline infection control practitioners to collect the necessary data and report it in a timely manner to public health, in compliance with the Ontario Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care's guidelines.

Additionally, we had to find a solution that was scalable and extendable to public health's other surveillance and future reporting needs.

Some other design essentials:

• single-entry of data to avoid inefficient repetition of tasks
• mobile reporting capabilities, close to source
• create forms that are clear, concise and task-specific
• design a secure and fail-safe reporting system
• foster a supportive peer relationship between hospital and public health staff

Our user-centered process included going in-field to interview key stakeholders at three of the City's hospitals. Observational work included "job-shadowing" frontline staff to better understand the challenges faced.

After studying task flows and processes, we presented a detailed cost/benefit analysis for alternative solutions. Part of this process included creating user "personas" to put a human face on key stakeholders.

Our recommendation: An automated and mobile web-based format and surveillance reporting that would facilitate single-entry of essential data at source and real-time reporting to the City's public health division.