Telephone Script

Attachment D. Telephone scripts for Health Departments and Health Facilities

To be read at the beginning of the phone conversation to begin the questionnaire:

Hello, I’m ____________________________ with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC. Last year, CDC received inquiries from both health departments and health facilities about patients with fever returning from travel in malaria-endemic countries that were either Ebola-affected or Ebola-unaffected. At the same time, CDC received reports about diagnoses of malaria being delayed in many patients until Ebola was ruled out. As you know, malaria is a deadly disease and any delay in diagnosis and treatment can have poor outcomes including death. This important project, called, “Management of Fever in Travelers from Ebola Affected and Ebola Non-affected Malaria Endemic Countries,” is needed to help inform urgent CDC recommendations and public health response to save lives.

Since CDC has received an inquiry about a patient [HEALTH DEPARTMENT: in your jurisdiction / HEALTH FACILITY: who was treated at your health facility], we would like to ask you to participate in a phone interview to gather additional information about this patient. The responses for each patient will require you to access medical records. It is estimated that the entire one and a half page questionnaire will take approximately [HEALTH DEPARTMENT: 10 minutes / HEALTH FACILITY: 5 minutes] to complete. However, we anticipate needing less of your time since some of the questions have already been answered [HEALTH FACILITY: by either the health department or] during the initial consultation with CDC.

Participation in this phone interview is completely voluntary and there are no penalties for choosing not to complete it. The project has undergone ethical review at the CDC and has been determined to be public health practice – public health response, and to be non-research. Information disclosure should only be done consistent with the laws and regulations that control access to patient information [HEALTH DEPARTMENT: in your jurisdiction / HEALTH FACILITY: at your hospital].

The data collected will allow CDC to validate anecdotal reports of delayed diagnosis and treatment of malaria. If confirmed, CDC can make the necessary and timely changes to current CDC recommendations and guidance including public health communications. Individual patient level data, or jurisdiction- level data, or hospital-level data will not be shared or presented, and steps will be taken to protect patient’s privacy to the extent allowable by US federal law.

I hope you will consider participating in this urgent and important project that will save lives. At any time after the phone interview if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via phone (office phone number), or email (email address).

Would you like to participate? (wait for reply)

If yes: Thank you for agreeing to participate. Let’s get started.

If no: Thank you for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions or concerns regarding this project.