WHONET 5.4 Update notes, June 2006
General
Microbiology expert system: WHONET now has an expert system with new features in data
entry, data analysis, and laboratory configuration. The three components of the expert
system are: 1. microbiological isolate alerts of unusual or important findings; 2. expert
interpretation rules (for MRSA, ESBL-producers, etc.); and 3. selective antibiotic reporting
in clinical reports. These features are described at greater length below.
New codes: Several new organisms, antibiotics, and specimen types have been added.
Previously, the serotypes file included serotypes for Salmonella and S. pneumoniae.
Serotypes for E. coli and Shigella have just been added.
Multi-user WHONET: In earlier versions of WHONET, only one instance of WHONET could be
run at a time. If users tried to start WHONET a second time, they would receive the
message “WHONET is already running”. To avoid conflicts between users, it was
generally recommended to install the WHONET program and configuration files
separately onto the c: drive of each computer. A problem with this approach was the
need for separate maintenance of the software and laboratory configuration files for each
computer where WHONET was installed.
In WHONET 5.4, this limitation has been removed, and should be particularly useful for
institutions with a laboratory computer network. It is now possible to keep the WHONET
program and configuration files on a common network drive without conflict between
users. Advantages of this modification include: 1. For most software updates, it will only
be necessary to update the central computer, not each computer separately; 2. All users
will be sharing a set of laboratory configuration files, so updates to antibiotic lists,
breakpoints, and other laboratory information will be automatically available for all
software users.
Note: It is still necessary to run the initial WHONET installation program separately for
each computer because WHONET relies on a number of additional Microsoft and nonMicrosoft file “libraries” that must be installed in each computer’s Windows System folder.
During the installation process, the installation software (InstallShield) will ask where you
would like to install the software. The default is c:\whonet5, but you can change this to
the common network location for shared use. For later re-installations or software
updates, in most cases you will only need to update the one copy of the software on the
central computer.
An additional advantage of this enhancement for future software development is that a
multi-user WHONET will facilitate internet-based access to WHONET analyses.
Configuration
Antibiotic panels: Panels have been added for “Gram positive urine”, “Shigella”, and “N.
meningitidis”. “Modify laboratory”, “Antibiotics”, “Panels”.
Antibiotic panels: In previous versions of WHONET, all organisms used the same sequence of
antibiotics. Now, the user can specify a different sequence for each drug panel. For
example in Staphylococci, ciprofloxacin may precede gentamicin on the data entry
screen, but follow it for E. coli. “Modify laboratory”, “Antibiotics”, “Panels”, “Antibiotic
sequence”.
Conditional antibiotic reporting: In previous versions of WHONET, clinical reports included all
antibiotics tested. In WHONET 5.4, the user may indicate which antibiotics should be
included in the clinical report to be given to the physician. The user may specify “first-line
antibiotics”, “second-line antibiotics”, and “do not print” antibiotics. The user can indicate
the criteria to be used for printing “second-line antibiotics”. “Modify laboratory”,
“Antibiotics”, “Panels”, “Conditional antibiotic reporting”.
Cefuroxime sodium and cefuroxime axetil: The typical cefuroxime most frequently tested in
clinical laboratories is cefuroxime sodium (code CXM). Cefuroxime axetil is an oral
version of this antibiotic (code CXA), and is tested by some laboratories, usually in
addition to cefuroxime sodium. Unfortunately, many laboratories incorrectly have chosen
“cefuroxime axetil” in their antibiotic configuration when in reality they test “cefuroxime
sodium” in the laboratory. To avoid confusion in the future, WHONET 5.4 will refer to
“cefuroxime sodium” as “cefuroxime”. The antibiotic codes remain unchanged.
Expert interpretation rules: WHONET 5.4 has a number of “expert rules” for modifying the
interpretation of susceptibility test results. For example in the case of oxacillin- or
cefoxitin-resistant staphylococci, WHONET can change the interpretation for all betalactam antibiotics to resistant. This feature is always activated for data entry and clinical
reporting. For data analysis, the user can turn the feature on or off. There are also rules
for “probable” and “confirmed” ESBL producers, beta-lactamase-negative ampicillin
resistant H. influenzae, and MLS “DTest”-positive staphylococci and streptococci.
“Modify laboratory”, “Antibiotics”, “Breakpoints”, “Expert interpretation rules”. Users may
indicate rules that they do not wish to use.
Isolate alerts: WHONET 5.4 now has approximately 190 pre-defined “expert rules” for alerting
microbiologists and infection control staff of unlikely, unusual, and important findings.
Alerts include: 1. Quality control alerts (“susceptible strains are rare”, “resistant strains
are rare”, “the resistance pattern is rare”, “disk diffusion is not recommended for this
organism and antibiotic”, “other problerm”); 2. Microbiological alerts (“important species”,
“important resistance”, “save the isolate”, “send to a reference laboratory”, “other alert”);
and 3. Clinical alerts (alert the infection control team, therapy comment). Alerts can be
“high”, “medium”, or “low” priority. Users can deactivate rules that they do not with to
use.
The user may also define their own “user-defined alerts”. WHONET can use these alerts
both in data entry and in data analysis. National networks can also develop their own set
of expert rules to use by laboratories in the surveillance network. “Modify laboratory”,
“Alerts”.
Data entry and file management
Antibiotic panels: Previously, WHONET displayed all antibiotics in the user’s laboratory
configuration and “jump” to appropriate antibiotics according to the panel configuration for
the organism selected. For example, if the user entered “sau” for S. aureus, WHONET
would display all of the antibiotics, but jump only to the Gram-positive antibiotics
configured by the user for “Staphylococcus”. In WHONET 5.4, the software will only
display the drugs configured for the panel. So for “sau”, the user will only see the
antibiotics configured for this organism. If the user does want to see and enter results for
other antibiotics absent from the panel, the user can select “All antibiotics” from the
option “Antibiotic panel”.
Conditional antibiotic reporting: WHONET will display with a white space all antibiotics that will
be included in the clinical report. Antibiotics appearing in gray do not appear in the
clinical report for the clinician. The user can use Laboratory configuration to define the
conditional antibiotic reporting rules. Or the user can use the <F8> and <F9> keys during
data entry to manually select the antibiotics to be included in the clinical report.
Isolate alerts: For isolates that meet the criteria of any of the active microbiological alerts,
WHONET will print a message in the lower right-hand corner of the screen about the
finding. For “high priority” alerts, the user will also receive a message box with the alert
(for example “Vancomyin-resistant Staphylococcus”). When the user clicks on “Save
isolate”, the user will see a summary of the alerts for the isolate.
Expert interpretation rules: WHONET will apply the active expert interpretation rules when
determining the test interpretation. For example, for an MRSA isolate, WHONET will
automatically change the interpretations for all beta-lactam agents to resistant.
View database: For convenience, WHONET now displays the patient and specimen identification
numbers in the two left-most columns.
Print clinical reports: In previous versions of WHONET, the user could print the “current isolate”
or use criteria such as “specimen date”, “date of data entry”, “specimen number”, etc. to
indicate which clinical reports to print. In WHONET 5.4, the user can also go to “View
database”, and manually select a group of isolates to print. This can be done by using
the “Shift” and “Ctrl” keys with the mouse to select the isolates to print.
Clinical reports: In addition to the expert interpretation rules described above, WHONET has two
additional rules for clinical reports to aid the use of information by clinicians. 1. S.
pneumoniae: if the laboratory tests this organism with an oxacillin disk but does not
determine a penicillin MIC, the clinical report will include both oxacillin (susceptible or
non-susceptible) and penicillin (with the same interpretation given for oxacillin); and 2.
Staphylococcus (sau, sep, scn): if the laboratory tests cefoxitin but not oxacillin,
WHONET will include both cefoxitin and oxacillin in the clinical report, using the cefoxitin
interpretation.
Encryption options: In earlier versions, the WHONET encryption routine created a confidential
identification number 10 characters in length. There are two new options to give you
more flexibility in determining how the identifier is encrypted: 1. the length of the identifier
(the default is still ten characters) and 2. the use of a “Secret word” to incorporate into the
encryption algorithm (the default is with no “Secret word”).
Automated encryption: For several years, WHONET has been able to run “macros” from the
Windows command line. This has been a useful feature for scheduling and automation
of WHONET analyses. Now, WHONET “encryption” can also be run from the Windows
command line. This facilitates the automated encryption of WHONET data files. The
syntax of the command is: c:\whonet5\whonet.exe encrypt file1.xxx file2.xxx
In this example “file1.xxx” is the name of the original WHONET data file. “file2.xxx” is a
copy of this file, but with confidential patient information removed or encrypted.
Data analysis
One-per-patient options: WHONET has multiple options for handling repeat options – by isolate,
by patient, by time interval or resistance phenotype with a number of options for defining
“time interval” and “resistance phenotype”. All of these options were available for
analyses which calculate %RIS statistics. In previous versions of WHONET, only “by
isolate” and “by patient – first isolate only” were possible for the other analysis options. In
WHONET 5.4, this limitation has been removed, so you can choose time intervals and
phenotype definitions for isolate listings and resistance profiles, for example.
Organism groups: Previously, WHONET had seven pre-defined “organism groups” available for
analysis: “All organisms”, “All Gram-positive organisms”, “All anaerobes”, etc. This list
has been significantly extended to include options such as as “All Enterobacteriaceae”,
“All non-fermenting Gram-negative rods”, “Klebsiella sp.”, “Salmonella sp.”, etc. To
access these organisms, enter “Organisms” in Data analysis. Click on “Organism
groups” to view the possible groupings. Note that organism group codes are given with
capitalized letters. For example, use “SAL” to analyze all Salmonella isolates (S.
Enteritidis, S. Typhi, Salmonella sp., etc.), but use “sal” to analyze only those isolates
entered by the user as “sal” (Salmonella sp.).
Blank organisms: In previous versions of WHONET, the data analysis program ignored any
record in which the organism column was blank. In WHONET 5.4, WHONET will also
include these results if the user selects analyses of “All organisms”. This will be
especially useful for laboratories which download from an existing laboratory system if an
empty field is used to indicate “No growth” instead of special code, such as “xxx” in
WHONET.
Isolate listing - isolate alerts: The use can view the microbiological alerts described above as
additional comments in the isolate. To use this feature, go to “Analysis type”, “Isolate
listing and summary”, and click on the option “Include isolate alerts”. By clicking on
“Alerts”, the user may configure which alerts to use in the analysis.
%RIS and test measurements by summary variables – In earlier versions of WHONET, users
could choose a “Row variable” to stratify statistics for the %RIS Summary analysis (for
example Specimen year, Department, Laboratory). This feature has now been added to
the standard %RIS detailed report. The output thus permits an easy direct comparison of
all %RIS statistics across values of the Row variable. In addition to the %R, %I, %S
statistics, the output also includes the full disk diffusion zone diameters and MIC values
permitting a direct comparison of the quantitative test measurements across values of the
Row variable. This format – sometimes known as “Squashed histograms” – represents a
numeric version of multiple histograms in one table.
ESBL statistics: ESBL statistics are now included in analyses in the same manner as betalactamase results.
Resistance profiles: For resistance profile summaries, the default column variable is “Specimen
date”. You can choose any other variable to use instead. In previous versions of
WHONET, if you selected “Age” as the column variable, WHONET would display results
for precise ages: 3 months, 16 years old, 72 years old, etc. In this version, the analysis
will display age groups: <1, 1-10, 11-20, etc. In a future version of WHONET, the
definition of the age groups will be up to the user.
BacTrack – isolate alerts: This is an enhanced version of the older WHONET analysis called
“Unusual isolates”. This analysis is very similar to the “isolate listing” just described. But
instead of providing a list of results for all isolates, WHONET will show only isolates
which have trigger a statistical or microbiological alert. In addition to the listing of “alert”
isolates, WHONET also provides a summary of the microbiological alerts triggered – how
many isolates satisfy each alert, as a total and also by laboratory. By clicking on
“Alerts”, the user may configure which alerts should be used in the analysis.
SaTScan – SaTScan™ is a freeware software for the detection of clusters and outbreaks in
public health data, developed under the joint auspices of Martin Kulldorf, of the National
Cancer Institute and of Farzad Mostarashi at the New York City Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene. “SaTScan” stands for “Space and Time Scan”. The software
permits a number of types of statistical models for cluster detection which should prove
extremely valuable in the early detection of hospital or community outbreaks of infectious
organisms.
WHONET is now able to call SaTScan from the Data Analysis and Quick Analysis
programs, integrating the statistical results into the standard WHONET output for Isolate
listing summaries and Resistance profile summaries. There is also an additional analysis
option called SaTScan which displays information on the potential clusters identified by
the statistical algorithms.
SaTScan has both a user interface version (SaTScan.exe) and a batch command line
option (SaTScanBatch.exe). Only the batch command line option is distributed with
WHONET. To download the full software and documentation, go to www.satscan.org.
Expert interpretation rules: By default, WHONET does not apply the expert interpretation rules
for MRSA, ESBL-producers, etc. in the interpretation of results for data analysis. To
apply these expert interpretation rules, the user must go to “Options” and click on “Use
expert interpretation rules”.
Excel: WHONET 5 has always had the ability to export results to Microsoft Excel. However, the
format of this export was not very attractive. “Copy” and “Paste” was much faster and
also provided better formatting in Excel. In WHONET 5.4, the Excel export has been
much improved. If the user saves analysis results as “Excel”, the output in Excel is well
formatted, including all relevant charts. An advantage of using Excel charts is that the
user may use Excel later to modify the format and presentation of graphical data (fonts,
colors, text, etc.) (WHONET graphs can be copied and pasted to other softwares, but
after pasting the graph, it cannot be subsequently edited.)
Macros: A macro is a small file that you can create which saves the details of any analysis that
you perform. By using macros, you can facilitate the performance of commonly used
analyses. You can also prepare macros for use by people who are not very familiar with
data analysis with WHONET. To create a macro, select all of the analysis options that
you want (analysis type, organisms, data files, etc.). Then click on “Macros”, “New”.
Enter a name for the macro and click “Save”. The macro is now ready for use anytime.
To use the macro at a later time, open WHONET, enter “Data analysis”, “Macros”. Find
the macro that you want, and select “Load”. You can then use “Begin analysis” to start
the analysis, or you can make any changes to the parameters before running the
analysis.
(Note: the macro feature of WHONET has not changed significantly since WHONET 5.3.
It is described again here because of its expanded use in WHONET 5.4 for the new
analysis feature “Quick analysis” described below.)
Note: macros can be run from the Windows command line with the syntax:
c:\whonet5\whonet.exe xxxx.mcr
where “xxxx.mcr” is the name of the macro to run.
Quick analysis reports: WHONET has a new feature called “Quick analysis” with two aims: 1. for
people who are very familiar with WHONET, “Quick analysis reports” can be significant
time saver for commonly performed analyses; 2. for people who are not familiar with
WHONET, “Quick analysis reports” can provide a lot of valuable information quickly
without the need to learn WHONET.
WHONET has two kinds of reports: 1. WHONET-defined reports; and 2. user-defined
reports. WHONET 5.4 has two pre-defined reports: “WHONET Standard report” and
“SaTScan Space and Time Scan analysis for clusters. The first report provides a useful
summary of various types of information about the data file (file overview, data
completeness, invalid records, ...), laboratory configuration (problems with antibiotic
breakpoints, disk potencies, ....), and microbiological findings (most common organisms,
key drug-bug combinations, isolate alerts, ...). The SaTScan report provides information
about possible organism outbreaks.
A user-defined report consists of any number of macros created by the user in data
analysis. For example, if there are five analyses that the user performs on a weekly
basis, the user can create five macros using data analysis, and then put these five
macros into a user-defined report. The user may wish to create separate reports for
different target groups – pharmacy, infection control, hospital administration, etc.
A report can also include other reports or WHONET reference tables in order to build a
larger summary report.
Note: reports can be run from the Windows command line with the syntax:
c:\whonet5\whonet.exe xxxx.rpt
where “xxxx.rpt” is the name of the report to run.
BacLink
Additional interface formats: Interfaces for the following systems has been added: Meditech
Magic, Cerner Classic, WinPath, and the Oman Hospital Information System. In addition,
BacLink can now interface with any version of Microsoft Access. In previous versions of
BacLink, only Access 2 and 97 were supported. Results must be saved in the form of a
“flat” non-relational table.
WHONET 5.3 Update notes, December 2003
General
Code lists: Additional codes have been introduced into the WHONET lists of organisms,
specimen types, data fields, and antibiotics. The NCCLS 2003 breakpoints have been
included.
Configuration
Antibiotics: There is now no limit to the number of antibiotics tests which may be included in a
laboratory configuration. This will be of particular value to national surveillance data
managers. Previously, a laboratory was permitted up to 105 different antibiotic tests.
Due to limitations imposed by Microsoft, there is still a limit to the number of antibiotics
which may appear in a single data file (limit now approximately 120), but there is no limit
to the number of antibiotics which can be analyzed.
Antibiotic panels: New organism panel groups have been included: Non-fermenters, Salmonella,
and Campylobacter, The panel “Gram-positive” has now been separated into
Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and Streptotoccus viridans. (The existing panels S.
pneumoniae and Enterococcus have not been modified.)
Isolate listing field configuration: The user may now indicate which fields should be included by
default in isolate listings. Previously, WHONET defined the default fields, and the user
could select “Show hidden columns” to see the rest.
Data entry and file management
Modify clinical report: Previously, WHONET defined the contents of the patient clinical report.
The user now has the ability to choose the fields to be included, fonts, headers, and
footers, as well as the number of reports to include on one page. This option should be
particularly useful to laboratories which utilize WHONET to print clinical reports for
distribution to clinicians. The feature can be accessed from “Data entry”, “Modify clinical
report”.
Printing clinical reports: Previously, the user could use “Date of data entry” to select which
reports to print out. Now the user can choose from one of several options: specimen
number, specimen date, patient name, location, organism, etc.
Modify data file structure: In a manner similar to Micrsoft Access, users may now directly edit the
structure of existing data files: delete fields, rename fields, change field lengths. This
feature can be accessed from “Data entry”, “Modify data file structure”.
Data analysis
Macros – storing analysis parameters: WHONET now has a “Macro” feature to store analysis
selections and options set by the user. A macro can be useful in retrieving long lists of
frequently analyzed organisms or data files, setting user preferences for option settings,
saving complex search criteria, etc.
Macros – automated analyses: Utilizing the Windows Task Scheduler (usually installed
automatically in all versions of Windows 98 and up), it is possible to schedule analyses to
run on a periodic basis, for example every Monday morning at 6 a.m.
Isolate listing: As indicated above, the user may now define which fields to include by default in
isolate listings.
%RIS and histograms, number of isolates: The user may print out either the percentage or the
number of isolates resistant, intermediate, and susceptible to an antibiotic. Number of
isolates will also appear in the histogram.
%RIS and histograms, combine disk, MIC, and Etest results. Previously, WHONET would always
display separately results obtained from different test methods, for example gentamicindisk %resistant and gentamicin-MIC %resistant. As an option, the user can now combine
these into a single statistic. This option should be useful for laboratories and countrise in
which both methods are commonly used.
Histograms and scatterplots, MIC ranges. Previously, MIC ranges were always displayed in
graphs from 0.002 to 2048 mcg/ml. This may now be modified by the user to improve the
visual display of the results.
BacLink
Automated data conversions: BacLink can be run in an automated fashion so that data file
conversions can be scheduled, for example every Monday morning at 5:30.
WHONET 5.2 Update notes
General
Languages: Greek and Italian have been added. The current list of languages is: English,
Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Estonian, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmal), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Portuguese, Russian, Spanish,
and Thai. If you would like to translate WHONET into your language, please let us know
and we will provide instructions. Translation is most commonly accomplished by editing a
text file in Excel.
Configuration
Data fields: The major improvement between WHONET 5.2 and WHONET 5.1 is greater
flexibility in the management of data fields. WHONET now permits you to add, remove,
or modify nearly all standard and optional data fields. For example, in earlier versions of
WHONET, it was not possible to remove or modify fields such as "Last name" or "Date of
birth". Now it is possible to remove fields which you do not use or to change the field
width if you need more space.
Data entry and file management
Data entry screen: The placement of fields on the data entry screen is now configurable by the
user. Combined with the improved flexibility in the configuration of data fields, users can
now design the data entry screen into the format which they find most convenient for their
work.
Data files: WHONET now permits the user to delete fields from a data file that are no longer
needed.
Data analysis
Isolate listing summary: The user may now select the data fields to be used for both the rows
and the columns. In previous versions, it was only possible to select the row variable.
So for example, it is now possible to summarize "Laboratory" by "Organism" or
"Specimen type" by "Department". If you summarize a variable by a date variable (for
example by "Specimen date"), you may now choose between a summary "by month" or
"by year".
Resistance profile summary: The user many now select the data field to use for the column
variable. In previous versions, profiles were always summarized by specimen month and
by location. Data summaries can be done by month or by year.
BacTrack: The "Unusual isolates" feature has been enabled. This feature allows the automatic
detection of "Unusual isolates" as defined by frequency. For example, "K. pneumoniae"
susceptible to "ampicillin" is considered unusual because such strains happen less than
5% of the time. (The percentage criteria is configurable by the user.) To take advantage
of this feature, you must first use "Build dictionary" to create a summary of your historical
data.
BacLink
Data fields: The improved flexibility in data field management described for WHONET 5.2 has
also been incorporated into BacLink. BacLink is thus a much more generic and flexible
data interface tool for converting many kind of data between file formats.
Additional interface formats: Additional instrument and LIS formats have been added, including
Aura, Osiris, MIC 2000, MADS, and several formats specific for Japanese systems.
Improvements in some instrument interfaces have also been made.
WHONET 5.1 Update notes, June 2001
General
Multilingual: The user may choose between a number of available languages. The software also
permits interested users to translate the software into additional languages.
Improved screen displays: Many of the screen displays have been modified to reflect new
features, improved messages, and space requirements for the additional languages.
File folders: Program and data files have been placed into separate folders (Codes, Data, Docs,
Language, Output, Machines) to improve the organization of WHONET files.
Fonts: The user can control the fonts used in screen displays and in printouts. This is especially
useful for languages which do not use the Latin alphabet.
New codes: New antibiotics, organisms, specimen types, patient departments, location types,
and optional data fields have been defined.
Veterinary, food, and environmental laboratories: A number of features have been introduced for
use by non-clinical laboratories. Most of these features are in an evaluation phase, and
some have been disabled in this distribution version of WHONET 5.1.
BacLink 2: BacLink 2 (for Windows) is now available and is included and integrated with
WHONET 5.1. BacLink can be used to transfer data from existing softwares, information
systems, and automated susceptibility test instruments, avoiding the need for direct data
entry into WHONET 5.1. BacLink 2 is also available in a number of languages.
Removal of software bugs, clarification of instructions, improvements in software design: With
the suggestions, comments, experience, and patience of many users around the world,
errors have been removed from the program, confusing instructions have been reworded,
displays have been redesigned.
Configuration
Antibiotics: The NCCLS (US), CA-SFM (French), and BSAC (UK) breakpoints and quality control
ranges have been updated, and the list of antibiotics has been expanded. To update
your breakpoints to the latest values, select your laboratory, choose “Modify laboratory”,
“Antibiotics”, “Breakpoints”, “Update breakpoints”. After you update the breakpoints, it is
essential that you print out and review the breakpoints to ensure that they are complete
and correct. Before updating the breakpoints, you may wish to make a copy of the
current laboratory configuration (utilizing “Copy laboratory”) in case you periodically want
to use the previous antibiotic breakpoints.
Copy laboratory: A “Copy laboratory” feature has been included. This may be useful in a multicentric collaboration in which all laboratories have similar antibiotic and location
configurations. It can also be used to make backup copies of your laboratory
configuration prior to making significant changes, for example updating the antibiotic
breakpoints. After a laboratory has been created through “Copy laboratory”, the new
laboratory may be edited independently of the original.
Create a laboratory from a data file: This feature may be particularly useful to a national data
manager. One application is the generation of a configuration for laboratories which send
data to national coordinators, but forget to send the corresponding configuration file.
Another application is the generation of a “national laboratory” configuration which
includes a list of all antibiotics tested within the network. This “national laboratory” can be
utilized to analyze easily all data files collected by the network. To take advantage of this
feature, create a sample “national” data file by combining examples of data files from
each of the participating laboratories.
Data entry and file management
Editing of the data table: Under ‘View Database’, it is now possible to directly edit records in a
table format using ‘Edit table’ without retrieving each isolate individually with ‘Edit isolate’.
Multiple organisms from individual patients or specimens: When saving results, the program now
permits the user to enter several organisms for individual patients or specimens. This will
decrease the amount of repetitive data entry required.
Combining and exporting data files: Multiple files may now be easily combined. (In previous
versions, only two files could be combined at a time.) An export utility has been added so
that files can be exported to formats other than the usual dBASE format used by
WHONET files.
Encrypt patient information: This utility permits the creation of copies of your data files in which
confidential patient identifier information has been removed (patient name, day of birth) or
encrypted (patient number, specimen number). Month and year of birth are retained.
Quality control ranges: Quality control organisms and ranges have been entered into WHONET,
permitting the immediate alert of out-of-range results.
Salmonella serovars: In addition to 140 Salmonella entries in the standard organism list of threeletter codes, the complete list of named serovars has been entered into WHONET. To
access the complete list, you must include “Serotype” as one of your data fields. To do
this, select your laboratory, select “Modify laboratory”, select “Data fields”, select
“Microbiology”, select “Serotype”.
Data analysis
Analysis options: Additional options have been defined. For example: histograms utilizing the
quality control breakpoints, scatterplots with regression lines, isolate listings with
encrypted patient information and/or with BacTrack comments.
One per patient: In addition to previous options, resistance estimates may now be calculated
incorporating definitions of episodes (using time intervals between specimens) and/or
resistance phenotypes (using antibiotic test results).
Data file selection: Multiple files may be selected at the same time. Previously it was necessary
to select each file individually.
Clear selections: “Clear organism list” and “Clear file list” options permit the quick removal of the
previous selections.
Copy graph and Copy table: These options permit the simple transfer of graphs and tables to
other Windows softwares, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word, using standard “cut
and paste” features. Such softwares can be very valuable in the formatting of
presentation quality reports and distribution materials.
Sorting of analysis results: For data displayed in table format, you may click any grid heading to
sort the data by that field. Click once for sorting in ascending sequence. Click twice for
descending sequence.