Making connections
New technologies offer new opportunities to link newborn screening programs and the medical home
by Stephen Downs, MD, MS
Director, Children’s Health Services Research, Indiana University

With tandem mass spectrometry, the number of conditions that may be detected on a newborn blood spot has increased from a handful to more than 50. This presents many new opportunities for timely care—as well as risks for inadequate follow-up. Investigators are developing new ways to link newborn screening programs, subspecialists, and the medical home. Read more >

The evolution of public health information exchange
by Noam H. Arzt, PhD

Public health is increasingly exchanging information with health-care providers, hospitals, government, insurers, and families. With the growth of Health Information Exchange Networks, public health can embrace and promote standards, open access to its program-based database information, and organize stakeholders to make sure that everyone—including public health—has a place at the table. Read more >

Envisioning the future
Connections community of practice members think out loud about the year 2020
by Debra Bara, MA
Connections Community Manager

At a Connections site visit to the Indiana Department of Health in November, members shared their insights into how best to guide the evolution of the Connections community of practice in the development of integrated child health information systems. The group generated many ideas, from which a number of themes emerged. Read more >

Institute launches RWJF National Program Office for Common Ground

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has announced that the Public Health Informatics Institute—parent organization of Connections—will serve as the National Program Office for the new RWJF grant program, Common Ground: Transforming Public Health Information Systems. The three-year, $15 million program seeks to strengthen state and local public health departments by changing how they conceive and develop information systems to better serve their communities. Read more >

Institute will present a session on its new Business Case Model for integrating information systems at the annual EHDI conference

Alan Hinman, MD, MPH, Senior Public Health Scientist at the Public Health Informatics Institute, will present a 60-minute topical session on The Business Case for Integrating Child Health Information Systems at the 2007 Annual Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Conference, March 26 - 27 in Salt Lake City. The Institute has developed the Business Case Model to assist state health agencies in communicating the value of integrated child health information systems.
Read the abstract  >   Visit the conference Web site  >

Reading Connections

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System
Unhealthy dietary behaviors, physical inactivity, and tobacco use contribute to chronic disease and other health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and asthma. These behaviors often are established during childhood and adolescence, extend into adulthood, are interrelated, and are preventable. The 2005 national survey results of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) are detailed in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) February 23, 2007 (Vol. 56 / No. SS-2). Read the report  >

First long-term outcomes of MCAD neonatal screening in Australia
Outcome of neonatal screening for medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency in Australia: a cohort study (The Lancet 2007 Jan 6;369(9555):37-42) is the first population-based study that assesses long-term outcomes in screened and unscreened birth cohorts for MCAD deficiency. Since MCAD deficiency is responsible for causing substantial morbidity and mortality, it is the disorder thought most to justify neonatal screening by tandem-mass spectrometry. Read the abstract >