Public Health Informatics Unit
The mission of the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment’s Public Health Informatics Unit is to improve the
performance of public health systems by advancing public health
practitioners’ ability to strategically manage and apply health
information systems. The Public Health Informatics Unit fosters
collaboration, innovation, and action. We work alongside public
health practitioners to apply and manage information systems
strategically and effectively. The Public Health Informatics
Unit acts as a resource for public health practitioners and
supports their goal of improving community health.
The Public Health Informatics Unit maintains five information
systems. These systems include:
- The Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN)
Integrated Data System (IDS). The IDS tracks and identifies
Children with Special Health Care Needs through universal
screening programs and the Birth Defects Registry. The
system links those children with appropriate follow-up
services at The Children’s Hospital or at Health Care
Program for Children with Special Needs (HCP) local offices.
In addition the system facilitates care coordination for
children identified in their own communities.
- The Women’s Health Family Planning information system.
The Family Planning information system is a data collection
and reporting application for Title X, the Federal Family
Planning Program.
- The Women’s Health Prenatal Plus information system. The
Prenatal Plus information system is a Medicaid-funded case
management program, which reduces the number of low
birthweight infants in Colorado.
- The Women’s Wellness Connection (WWC) electronic Cancer
Screening and Tracking (eCaST) information system. The goal
of the program is to reduce breast and cervical cancer
mortality. The Women’s Wellness Connection provides breast
and cervical cancer screening and selected diagnostic
services at more than 120 sites to women of limited income.
- The Colorado Colorectal Screening Program (CCSP)
information system. The goal of the program is to provide
colorectal screening services to medically underserved
Coloradans funded with Amendment 35 monies.
What is Public Health Informatics?
Public Health Informatics has been defined as the systematic
application of information and computer science and technology
to public health practice, research, and learning. In the same
way that public health as a distinct field relates to healthcare
generally, public health informatics is distinguished from
healthcare informatics by emphasizing data about populations
rather than that of individuals. The activities of public health
informatics can be broadly divided into the collection, storage,
and analysis of data of interest to the various activities of
public health.
In broad terms, today’s public health professionals must be
able to use information effectively; to use information
technology effectively; and to manage information technology
projects effectively. Ideally, public health leaders should also
have the skill and vision to apply information science and
technology to re-engineer certain elements of public health
practice altogether, when such fundamental changes are
appropriate and made feasible by modern information technology.
The scope of public health informatics includes the
conceptualization, design, development, deployment, refinement,
maintenance, and evaluation of communication, surveillance, and
information systems relevant to public health. It requires the
application of knowledge from numerous disciplines, particularly
information science, computer science, management,
organizational theory, psychology, communications, political
science, and law. Its practice must also incorporate knowledge
from the other fields that contribute to public health (e.g.,
epidemiology, microbiology, toxicology, statistics, etc.).
Although public health informatics draws from multiple
scientific and practice domains, computer science and
information science are its primary underlying disciplines.
Computer science, the theory and application of automatic data
processing machines, includes hardware and software design,
algorithm development, computational complexity, networking and
telecommunications, pattern recognition, and artificial
intelligence. Information science encompasses the analysis of
the structure, properties, and organization of information,
information storage and retrieval, information system and
database architecture and design, library science, project
management, and organizational issues such as change management
and business process reengineering.
In public health informatics, there are four principles,
flowing directly from the scope and nature of public health that
distinguish it from other informatics specialty areas. These
four principles define, guide, and provide the context for the
types of activities and challenges that comprise this new field:
- The primary focus of public health informatics should be
on applications of information science and technology that
promote the health of populations as opposed to the health
of specific individuals. As a discipline, public health
focuses on the health of the population and the community,
as opposed to that of the individual patient.
- The primary focus of public health informatics should be
on applications of information science and technology that
prevent disease and injury by altering the conditions or the
environment that put populations of individuals at risk.
Public health emphasizes the prevention of disease and
injury versus intervention after the problem has already
occurred. Although notable exceptions exist, traditional
health care largely treats individuals who present with a
disease, while public health seeks to avoid the conditions
that led to the disease in the first place.
- Public health informatics applications should explore
the potential for prevention at all vulnerable points in the
causal chains leading to disease, injury, or disability;
applications should not be restricted to particular social,
behavioral, or environmental contexts. In public health, the
nature of a given preventive intervention is not
predetermined by professional discipline, but rather by the
effectiveness, expediency, cost, and social acceptability of
intervening at various potentially vulnerable points in a
causal chain leading to disease, injury, or disability.
Public health interventions have included, for example,
legislatively mandated housing and building codes, solid
waste disposal and wastewater treatment systems, smoke
alarms, fluoridation of municipal water supplies, and
removal of lead from gasoline. Contrast this with the modern
health care system, which generally accomplishes its mission
through clinical and surgical encounters.
- As a discipline, public health informatics should
reflect the governmental context in which public health is
practiced. Much of public health operates through government
agencies that require direct responsiveness to legislative,
regulatory, and policy directives, careful balancing of
competing priorities, and open disclosure of all activities.
References:
O’Carroll PW, Yasnoff WA, Ward E, Ripp L, Martin E. Public
Health Informatics and Information Systems. New York:
Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. (in press, available Nov
2002).
Yasnoff WA, O’Carroll PW, Koo D, Linkins RW, Kilbourne E.
Public Health Informatics: Improving and transforming public
health in the information age. J Public Health Management
Practice 2000; 6(6): 67-75.
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