It’s also important to remember that there are many jobs that only you, not a computer, can do. For example, only you can:

- contact physicians, other health care providers, and laboratories to obtain missing information,

- interpret laboratory tests,

- make judgments about epidemiological linkages and

- duplicate records,

- identify and correct mistakes in data entry, and

- determine if epidemics of diseases or other adverse health events are in progress.

Most importantly, only you are familiar with the people, disease patterns, reporting systems, and resources in your community that are critical to understanding and using surveillance data appropriately and communicating it to others to change policies and programs.