Successfully Thinking Globally and Acting Locally: Reflections of a County Public Health Informatics Manager

Rushing in with big picture informatics can build barriers to organizational buy in and undermine confidence in your commitment to giving primacy to local priorities. Successfully thinking globally, while acting locally, is about capitalizing on opportunities that spin off technical, practice, resource and policy questions that lead to the bigger picture.  The author reflects on the first six months in a newly created post, describing the challenges and opportunities to both educate managers and peers and shape the broad framework by which public health managers understand and relate to informatics initiatives and requirements. How does one practically assert a seat at the table wherever information is created, maintained, managed and used internal and external to the organization? How does one conceptualize and chart informatics role to help define the tool that is needed but also address the context in which it will operate.  Moving through systems design and open standards and technology the author engaged operators and analysts, initiating dialogues on redundant practices, sharing, trusted sources and the value of information. Engaging statewide enterprise initiatives were an opportunity to open discussion on reconciling technical capabilities with statutory data ownership and multi-jurisdictional data governance. Web and GIS desires created an opening to identify stakeholders and frame discussion on appropriate data use and visualization, data integration and cross departmental data sharing.