Highlights

International Public Health Informatics 2011 Conference

"Engaging, Empowering, Evolving... Together"
August 21 - 24, 2011
Hyatt Regency Atlanta - Downtown

The 2011 Informatics Conference brings together the informatics and health technology communities in Atlanta, GA to help build the future innovations in public health.

Click here for more information, or to register online

...and while you're at the conference, don't miss these global health activities, co-sponsored by PHII:

International Night - Wednesday, Aug. 24th, 6 - 9 pm

"Setting the Informatics Agenda for Global Health" Workshop
Sunday, Aug. 21st, 1 - 4 pm

Click here to learn more, and RSVP for International Night

Announcing Two New Animated Presentations
from the Common Ground Project

Supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Collaborative Requirements Development Methodology
Animated Walk-through

A Product of the Common Ground Project
Supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

This animated walk-through introduces the terminology, tools, approach and advantages of the Institute's Collaborative Requirements Development Methodology (CRDM). This is the approach employed by the Chronic Disease and Preparedness Workgroups of the Common Ground Project to collaboratively define, document and refine their respective workflows, and to create comprehensive functional requirements that describe how information systems can best support their work.

Click here to play the CRDM walk-through

Common Ground Preparedness Framework
Animated Walk-through

A Product of the Common Ground Project
Supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

This animated walk-through introduces the public health Preparedness Framework developed by the Preparedness Workgroup of the Common Ground Project. Through this animation you will be introduced to the framework, understand how it was developed, and experience its value to public health leadership, as you walk through an application of the framework to the H1N1 outbreak.

Click here to play the Preparedness Framework walk-through

The Applied Public Health Informatics Curriculum (APHIC)

by Kathy Miner, Melissa Alperin, Claudia W. Brogan, NIki Buchanan and Bill Brand

The Public Health Informatics Institute is offering the Applied Public Health Informatics Curriculum to help those in public health learn about the emerging field and activities of public health informatics. The curriculum is being made available to schools of public health, universities, community colleges, and other educational bodies for use as part of a degree or certificate program. Institutions may elect to use the entire curriculum or select modules.The preface document and the full curriclum are now available for download.

Applied Public Health Informatics Preface Document

Applied Public Health Informatics Curriculum

Common Ground Chronic Disease and Preparedness Information System Requirements

Common Ground: A National Program of the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Defining requirements is a critical step in developing or acquiring an information system. If the requirements are not correctly and clearly defined, the system will not meet the needs of its users. The Common Ground Project was designed to assist chronic disease and preparedness departments in public health agencies to document and define business processes common to each of them, and to identify the requirements for information systems to effectively support these processes. Documents summarizing the work of and presenting the requirements developed by the Common Ground workgroups are now available for download.

Information System Requirements for Chronic Disease Management

Information System Requirements for Public Health Preparedness

Toolkit for Chronic Disease Management

Toolkit for Public Health Preparedness

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Leveraging Immunization Data in the e-Health Era

by Shaun Grannis, Brian Dixon and Bill Brand

The significant financial investments in health information technology authorized by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act are intended to stimulate a marked increase in the use of interoperable Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and in the formation of Health Information Exchange entities (HIEs). HIEs are steadily emerging across the country and are expected to grow with the recent appropriation of HITECH funding, especially through the State HIE Cooperative Agreement program.1 At the same time, Immunization Information Systems (IISs) exist today as fairly mature systems in most states. As of December 2009, 77 percent of all children greater than six years of age in the United States had two or more immunizations recorded in an IIS. This paper addresses the impact that the growth of HIEs might have on IISs. Specifically, it explores how HIEs and IISs could work together to add value to each other, to build on one another´s strengths, and to better and more cost-effectively achieve their overall—and largely shared—missions.

Read the full article

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Common Requirements for Logistics Management
Information Systems

Produced with the Collaborative Requirements Development Methodology (CRDM)

The importance of functional health information systems in achieving improved health outcomes continues to grow, yet the reality in most developing countries is that the systems and health information technologies which support them are often poorly designed and unable to work together as a sustainable and scalable system. Donors and countries alike recognize the need to establish architecture and reusable tools for more systematically building global health information systems. This project was funded to address that need and had two main objectives; (1) develop a general methodology for determining and documenting health information system user requirements and (2) apply this methodology to produce requirements in supply chain as one of the core functional domains of a national health system.

Read the full report
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Health Affairs Article:

Immunization Registries Can Be Building Blocks for National Health Information Systems

by
Alan R. Hinman and David A. Ross

Electronic health records and health information exchanges are necessary components of the information infrastructure to support a reformed health care system. However, they are not sufficient by themselves. Merely summing data from electronic health records together will not provide a comprehensive picture of the population, which is essential for tracking disease trends and treatment outcomes. Public health information systems such as immunization registries are an essential component of the information infrastructure and will allow assessment of the impact of changes in health care on the population as a whole.

Access full article

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