Increasingly, public health informaticians are needed to support adoption and meaningful use of electronic health record (EHR) systems. In an era of increasing public health responsibilities, rapid advances in information systems, and shrinking budgets, few states have enough informatics capacity; many have lesser resources to build an informatics workforce infrastructure; and even fewer states have begun development of job classifications to hire graduates of newly established public health informatics training programs.

Note: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Abstract

Increasingly, public health informaticians are needed to support adoption and meaningful use of electronic health record (EHR) systems. In an era of increasing public health responsibilities, rapid advances in information systems, and shrinking budgets, few states have enough informatics capacity; many have lesser resources to build an informatics workforce infrastructure; and even fewer states have begun development of job classifications to hire graduates of newly established public health informatics training programs. This panel will discuss (1) ongoing efforts to reengineer public health workforce development efforts at CDC; (2) a pilot federal and state partnership to deploy informatics fellows in the field; (3) development of an applied public health informatics curriculum; (4) a state perspective regarding informatics workforce development; and (5) a partnership across the federal government to develop job classifications for public health informaticians.