Ready or Not: The Role of Public Health in Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs)

In this session, Institute staff provided participants with an overview of the national health information initiative stemming from HRSA and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT).  These emerging information exchange markets have the potential to challenge the traditional roles of public health agencies.  The overview will be followed by presentations from two Connections members on activities with their regional health information organizations (RHIO).  In this interactive session, participants will be able to ask questions about how to get involved, how this initiative will impact their integration projects, and why they should consider participating in their local RHIOs.

Participants will:

• Understand the relevance of RHIOs to the integration of child health information systems
• Gain the knowledge needed for articulating what a RHIO is – and how the growing influence of RHIOs will affect public health departments
• Learn about how to get involved, discover how a RHIO impacts a systems integration project, and better understand the benefits of participating in a  RHIO
• Build compelling rationale to explain to public health agency partners why  their participation in a RHIO is important
• Take away real-world examples of how your peers in public health
  agencies are actively engaging in the development of RHIOs

Presenters

David Ross, ScD
Director, Public Health Informatics Institute

Roland Gamache, PhD, MBA
Director, State Health Data Center
Indiana State Department of Health