Challenges to Integrated Surveillance
Developing integrated AMR surveillance across the Nordic countries involves ethical, legal, financial, and logistical challenges. Six key obstacles have been identified, along with proposed solutions.
The Key Challenges
- Reporting of Aggregated Data - Many surveillance systems only provide summaries, preventing re-analysis
- AST Reporting - Loss of quantitative data when only S/I/R classifications are stored
- Clinical Isolate-Diagnosis Link - Laboratory results not connected to patient records
- Real-Time Data Sharing - Delayed reporting hinders outbreak detection
- Sampling Bias - Data mainly from hospitals, not representative of broader populations
- Secondary Data Use - Legal and regulatory barriers to reusing existing data for AMR surveillance and research across borders
Proposed Approach
The Roadmap proposes solutions for each challenge, starting with nationally aggregated data (avoiding GDPR complications) while developing regulatory frameworks that enable access to both aggregated summaries and raw anonymised data.