Key Objectives:
Attendees will learn strategies to develop the ability to work with multiple programs to advance informatics infrastructure within their jurisdiction.
Brief Summary:
BACKGROUND: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognizes that surveillance must provide complete, accurate, timely and accessible data to support effective public health activities. To efficiently manage surveillance data, public health agencies need integrated tools that support messaging and electronic data capture as well as secure data access, effective data management, and integrated analysis. The CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) cooperative agreement supports 62 awardees in building and sustaining 15 public health emergency capabilities, including Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation. In 2015, as the PHEP leadership began to plan for the upcoming Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) five year cycle, they engaged the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System program (NNDSS), National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP), Electronic Death Records (EDR) program, and Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) program. The intent was to align informatics requirements among the cooperative agreements to help jurisdictions leverage federal funding opportunities to support overall surveillance and informatics infrastructure. METHODS: In preparation for the new PHEP FOA, representatives from PHEP, EDR, ELR, NNDSS, and NSSP began to coordinate on priority informatics objectives. Requirements and measures from the associated cooperative agreements were considered, along with Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning,published by CDC in 2011, and input from public health informatics experts. This combined input guided development of the new PHEP FOA content related to Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation, Public Health Laboratory Testing, and Information Sharing, and it shaped processes for reporting on informatics investments and obtaining technical assistance. RESULTS:Collaboration among key CDC cooperative agreements that contribute to surveillance system infrastructure resulted in more coordinated informatics requirements for state, local, territorial and tribal cooperative agreement recipients. Alignment of public health informatics funding enables and incentivizes cooperative planning, investment and evaluation strategies for the recipient agencies. Alignment of measures among cooperative agreements reduces the reporting burden for recipients. CONCLUCSION:This alignment of cooperative agreement objectives and measures clarifies the intent that PHEP investments be coordinated with the investments of other CDC cooperative agreements to maintain and advance core public health surveillance and informatics infrastructure, including the systems that support ELR, NNDSS, EDR and NSSP. PHEP awardees are encouraged to leverage project funds for these activities and to include informatics projects in their FOA work plans.