The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #73580

Sherry Spence, MA, Health Services, Office of Family Health, Oregon Department of Human Services, 800 NE Oregon St., Suite 825, Portland, OR 97232, 503-731-4059, sherry.spence@state.or.us

Integrated data system development is a difficult, costly endeavor that is too often unsuccessful. Even when it is successful, we may have the sense that we have lost what we intended to gain. The money is spent, the system maintenance is ongoing – usually at a higher level than we planned for – and the access to epidemiological data is slower and more complicated than ever. Or access for epidemiologists and researchers is quick and easy at the cost of access and usefulness for service assurance and facilitation of care. These are the costs of getting more complete, timely data. Or are they? Does the data quality meet our minimum standards? Is the data collection process reliable, valid, and methodologically appropriate? What population is really represented in the analyzable data? This presentation will examine these issues and how they played out in Oregon. Generic programmatic issues discussed will include data quality, data accessibility, and the priority accorded to infrastructure building. Maternal and child health (MCH) program issues will include relevance to program administration, to client outcomes, and to legislative or executive decision. These MCH issues will be contrasted to epidemiological issues – relevance to surveillance goals and population health. Evidence-based approaches to dealing with these issues will be examined, along with ways Oregon is using to test the approach selected and, at the same time, build MCH program evaluation and population surveillance capacity.

Learning Objectives:

• At the end of the session, participants will be able to describe some of the major progammatic issues in integrating systems and how they are being addressed and describe hos information from these systems can be used to improve health and health services.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.