ABSTRACT
Early warning of infectious disease outbreak is key to controlling epidemics. Public general hospitals can effectively play their " outpost" role in the early warning and response of infectious diseases, which is directly related to the success of epidemic prevention and control. The authors summarized the current construction and main functions of infectious disease early warning systems at national level, regional level and public general hospitals, analyzed the problems existing in such construction, and put forward targeted suggestions. As found by the authors, some public general hospitals in China have initially built an early warning system for infectious diseases, achieving early recognition, early warning and reporting of infectious diseases to some extent. However, these systems were challenged by such shortcomings as insufficient intelligence, lack of data information exchange, immature practice and application, and lack of attention to the monitoring and early warning of endemic infectious diseases. It is suggested to improve the policy and system support in the future, to expand the types of infectious diseases for monitoring and early warning, to enlarge the sources of monitoring data and to strength hospital informationization construction.