Follow-up for my previous post on Google Flu Trends and big data.

You know what may be better than Google or Wikipedia searches—UpToDate data for both influenza-related searches and oseltamivir indications/dosing queries.

In my limited experience, doctors go to UpToDate when they have a patient in front of them they highly suspect has a specific condition and they want to verify either (1) criteria for diagnosis or (2) treatment options and/or dosing. Seems like you would get a high signal-to-noise ratio looking at UpToDate for tracking influenza.

The only hurdle is that pesky problem of getting a private company to turn over their data…