A Business Case for Local Health Department HIT Activities

A Business Case for Local Health Department IT

 The governmental presence at the local level for public health, that is, local health departments and the local offices of state health agencies, have a unique and necessary role in protecting the health of people and communities, promoting health improvement and preventing the occurrence of conditions that may harm the health of people and communities.
However, this consistent and available local presence has not been effectively or efficiently utilized in deploying health information technology.
To date, this resource has been used only in certain situations and certainly not to the full extent of its capabilities.
Two current circumstances provide an unprecedented opportunity to take better advantage of this important and available resource.
The first is the movement towards uniform standards for local and state public health agencies exemplified by NACCHO’s Operational Definition of a Functional Local Health Department and the activities of the Public Health Accreditation Board.
These initiatives provide platforms to establish and verify information technology standards for local and state public health entities.
The second is the accelerated movement, accompanied by financing, to identify, develop and deploy a range of health information technology solutions in a relatively short amount of time.
This paper will describe how these forces can be used to prepare the public health governmental presence at the local level to play pivotal and key roles in deploying the next wave of health information technology.