The Communities of Practice (CoPs) guides and supports collaboration of CDC staff and state and local partners who focus on a functional or technical area key to the effective exchange of public health electronic information and interoperability. The Communities of Practice workgroups meet to learn about these domains, share knowledge and expertise, and work toward the cohesive development of informatics solutions in critical areas.

We could do one presentation “Communities of Practice Update” which could provide an update from various communities of Practice since we met last time in 2009 conference. We could also leave 45 minutes for open discussion (Q & A) at PHIN Conference.

Vocabulary Messaging CoP, (VMCoP) – meets regularly to discuss vocabulary related issues and provide webinars on related standards and their implementations.

Laboratory and Messaging COP, (LMCoP) – meets when needed to discuss electronic data exchange issues and find solutions to specific to the laboratory realm and is comprised of three active implementation communities: The national Electronic Laboratory Reporting WG (ELR), LRN- LIMS Integration project (LRN-LIMSi) and the Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project (PHLIP).

Communications and Alerting CoP, (CACoP) - supports all aspects of alerting, voice and applicable data communications technologies required to meet state and CDC missions. Specific activities include; support of state and CDC efforts to deliver effective alerting solutions to all levels of government; sharing of member expertise; business process analysis & Strategic Planning Requirements development; evaluation, selection and implementation of communication solutions; participation directly in the development and implementation of communications standards such as Common Alerting Protocol (CAP),Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) and the Health Alert Network (HAN)system.

Case Reporting Standardization Workgroup (CRSWg) – collected and harmonized the minimum data set and reviewed suggested structured data representation of laboratory criteria for nationally notifiable conditions as defined by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE).

Infolinks CoP - The InfoLinks CoP is a national community of public health professionals with experience in organizing, implementing, and working with Health Information Exchanges (HIEs).