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February 2006 Maine's public health main event Maine is the fortieth most populous state, but it’s a state that thinks big. For one public health example, this scenic New England state is home to the country’s lowest infant mortality rate. In April, Maine will also be home to one of the country’s most ambitious integrated information systems for public health. The state even heralds its brand of big thinking with a new name for its health department: Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC). When fully implemented over the next two years, the new Maine CDC system, called the Integrated Public Health Information System, or IPHIS, will offer public health practitioners and private providers access to a wealth of health information on the Web. IPHIS allows each public health program to maintain its own database while contributing data to a central data repository. The integrated system will offer immunization registry data, vital records, lab results, health alerts, and other critical information displayed within a unified Web interface via a secure, single sign-on. “This system is going to be a major change,” said IPHIS director Lisa Tuttle of the results of the project’s five years of planning and implementation. “IPHIS offers a single Web portal for our users, a common business front-end for our programs. IPHIS also will expand the amount of cross-program data available to public health staff. So that’s going to cause a change management evolution as systems join IPHIS.” Another major information system rollout In addition to integrating data from the state’s immunization registry, this first phase of IPHIS implementation, which should be completed in the next six months, will include the state’s HAN and the public health lab systems, the environmental and forensic lab system, and the clinical lab system. Lab data will be accessible through IPHIS, even though the labs will continue to maintain their own information systems and will conduct their business as usual. Census and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data will also be mapped into the IPHIS central data repository. “With IPHIS, we’re introducing our staff to the concept of one-stop shopping,” said Tuttle. “You can do your work and you can have access to other programs as you work. So we’ll have this whole new world of access to information that we never had before.” Future participating systems now under consideration By exponentially increasing data available to public health staff, IPHIS will facilitate increased analyses and reporting on statewide conditions, and will help identify population health trends. The IPHIS team plans on providing a continuum of reporting and analysis tools to public health staff, ranging from “point and click” assessments to custom-built reports. Ultimately, the goal of IPHIS is to interact seamlessly with the private provider community and the public. The IPHIS platform leverages the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) Base System (NBS), extending the NBS reporting database into the IPHIS central data repository. The implementation will also include the Orion Rhapsody integration broker to facilitate future data exchange and integration. Connecting Maine project puts public health in the health information exchange “We’ve been heavily involved in implementing IPHIS,” said Tuttle. “Given that this is a major business change, the new system would benefit from having more marketing resources – even to our internal users. Eventually we want to get the word out to the larger health care community about what IPHIS can offer in future phases, but right now we’re focusing on ensuring that we deliver a high quality business tool to our public health staff.” For more information HOME | SITE MAP | CONTACT US | SEARCH | PRIVACY POLICY
©2005 Public Health Informatics Institute
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