Common Ground: New public health grant program announces call for proposals
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced a call for proposals for a new grant program, Common Ground: Transforming Public Health Information Systems. The program seeks to strengthen state and local public health departments by changing how they conceive and develop information systems to better serve their communities. The Public Health Informatics Institute will be the National Program Office for Common Ground. Application deadline is August 15, 2006.
Read more >

Connections awarded funding to continue its work through 2010
The Connections community of practice -- a program of the Institute -- has been awarded funding through a cooperative agreement to continue its work through 2010. Connections assists state and local public health agencies that are integrating information systems essential to improving the health of children. For example, programs that identify congenital or genetic conditions through newborn screening or alert public health practitioners of environmental hazards (e.g., lead poisoning) often have information systems that could mutually benefit from integration with other systems. By participating in Connections, members of the community of practice receive facilitated peer-to-peer support to help them move their systems integration projects forward more effectively.
Read more >

Institute launches new Unique Records Portfolio
The Portfolio is a useful, usable, hands-on guide to help public and private health practitioners tackle the challenges of deduplication. The Portfolio, developed by participants of the Institute's Connections community of practice, provides insights and strategies for the systematic identification, matching, and merging of records in an information system to create an accurate, unique health record for each individual.
Read more >

Local health departments collaborate to define business processes
Collaborative business process analysis is the key to developing information systems that support the work of all public health agencies. New products and a workshop from the Public Health Informatics Institute explain why and demonstrate how local health departments are using the tools of business process analysis to define and redesign their processes to improve quality and performance. These products provide background for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's new grant program Common Ground.

Taking Care of Business! A Collaboration to Define the Business Processes of Local Health Departments is a new 80-page report that describes the recent project of local health departments, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), and the Institute. The report explains the collaborative methodology used by the Institute to guide development of public health information systems, and includes context diagrams for nine LHD business processes.
Taking Care of Business! Web Conference was held June 13, 2006 and co-sponsored by NACCHO. Listen to local health department leaders describe how they have used business process analysis to improve public health processes in their health departments. The Institute's business analyst also demonstrates context diagramming and task flow diagramming using an everyday example (ordering fast food) and a public health business process example (immunization administration). The online presentation includes slides and audio.
The Taking Care of Business! workshop will be offered July 25 at the NACCHO annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Workshop participants will learn how to identify and define business processes and their component tasks, how to redesign task flow for improved performance, and how an information system can then be defined to support these processes. This workshop is jointly sponsored by the Public Health Informatics Institute and NACCHO.
Register now!

Baby New Business Case Model for integrating public health information systems announced
The Institute has developed the Business Case Model to assist state health agencies in communicating the value of integrated child health information systems. The model -- a powerful Excel-based tool -- can be used to demonstrate scenarios detailing the costs and benefits of child health information systems integration to society, providers, parents, and public health programs. By providing timely, accurate information when and where it is needed, integrated information systems help reduce the risk of children's health care opportunities falling through the cracks.
Read more >

Public Health Informatics Institute
750 Commerce Drive, Suite 400 • Decatur, GA 30030
TEL: 1.866.815.9704 FAX: 1.800.765.7520
http://www.phii.org/

Direct comments, inquires, and subscribe / unsubscribe requests to:
news@phii.org