Public Health Informatics in High Population States: New York and Ohio

Abstract

Public health agencies and practitioners are transforming from a “shoe leather” to an “informatics-savvy” based practice of public health where, increasingly, data and technology are used to answer the key questions necessary to improve the health of the population. Recent advances in healthcare information technology (IT), health data standards, electronic health records (EHRs) and health information exchange (HIE) implementations are accelerating the growth and future potential of public health informatics. It is critical for public health officials, programs, their longstanding partners, and new public-private partnerships to drive cross-programmatic data and system coordination, integration, and new development efforts; only with this leadership and collaboration will they be able to realize improvements in surveillance, prevention, response, and control activities and in the overall health and safety of the population and communities. It is also critical for public health informaticians to understand public health problems, as well as analytical solutions and the infrastructure necessary to support them.

There have been significant accomplishments within many state public health departments, such as the establishment of public-private partnerships and governance. However, many challenges remain, including managing and integrating large amounts of legacy public health and newly available electronic health data, meeting HIT interoperability standards, learning and adopting industry IT standards, and working with limited financial and staff resources. To address these challenges and achieve the goals of PHI, public health needs to develop an informatics competency and create an achievable roadmap, supported by performance measures.