An InfoAid and a Public Health Department; Catalyzing best practices

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (MCDC) is the State’s public health authority. MCDC’s Division of Public Health Systems (PHS) includes the Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHEP) and the Office of Public Health Informatics (OPHI).  MCDC/OPHI requested an InfoAid for two initial purposes:  (1)  To improve MCDC’s coordination among public health information systems and projects, identifying common data elements, objectives and priorities, researching feasible operational strategies; (2) To recommend an overarching operational project plan as a strategic effort meeting individual project objectives and timelines.  MCDC subsequently recognized the need for a Phase 2 InfoAid, focusing on data analysis, visualization, and reporting needs.  The results of Phase 1 captured functional priorities, informatics tool purpose, issues and challenges, and implementation risk assessments.  System timelines, dependencies, and data elements were captured at a very high level, and required more analyses in the Phase 2 InfoAid.  The results of Phase 2 were (1) Aid in AVR requirements definition for an agency platform; (2) Architecture for a preparedness dashboard; and (3) Dashboard prototype.  Besides the tangible products, a primary value of both phases was to catalyze strategic and collaborative informatics management through dedicated attention and expertise to informatics methods and practice, and to build informatics skills among public health staff.  PHIFP fellows provided strategic assessments from both an empathetic and an objective view, and captured data requirements from a diversity of programmatic staff and external stakeholders in a non-threatening and positive manner, which informed subsequent planning and implementation by OPHI.