201332 Integrating public health and health care surveillance data to guide community health decisions

Wednesday, November 11, 2009: 8:45 AM

James B. Welsh, PhD , Office of Health Systems Management and Office of Health Insurance Programs, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY
Priti Irani, MS , New York State Assessment Initiative, New York State Dept of Health, Albany, NY
Michael Medvesky, MPH , Office of Public Health Practice, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY
Marie Miller, MS , Office of Public Health Practice, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY
Sylvia Pirani, MPH, MS , Office of Public Health Practice, NYS Department of Health, Albany, NY
  
Local health departments and hospitals in New York State collaborated with partners on mandated community health assessments and service plans to identify two to three health priorities based on a statewide Prevention Agenda in 2009. To assist communities, the New York State Department of Health created Prevention Quality Indicators from its hospital discharge records for 2005 and 2006, using software from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The Department provides access to this information through a public website where users can define a community or service area by selecting ZIP codes on an interactive map and see population-adjusted PQI rates for the combined ZIPs. Users can select from 12 PQI measures, four condition-based summaries, or the composite measure proposed by AHRQ. The site also provides graphs to depict the racial-ethnic composition of the user-defined area and population-adjusted PQI rates by race-ethnicity. We believe this is the first publicly available website to provide population-adjusted PQI rates for user-defined local areas. The approach can be extended to other local healthcare indicators with a modest marginal effort.

The presentation will describe how local health departments and hospitals are utilizing the PQI and population data including Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data within the context of public health frameworks; challenges with accessing and disseminating data; and how these challenges are being addressed.

Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss public health informatics in the context of public health frameworks 2. Describe the use of public health and health care surveillance data to identify community health needs. 3. List challenges and strategies for increasing dissemination and access to public health and health care data.

Keywords: Surveillance, Assessments

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have more than two decades of experience applying social and healthcare indicators to policy analysis, program development and evaluation, directing bureaus at the NYS Dept of Social services and NYS Dept of health. I served as the lead staff person on the development of our PQI website and participated in training sessions with counties, hospitals, advocates and others who are using that information for planning. My background includes a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University and post-doctoral training in clinical research at the University of Chicago and Michael Reese Medical Center.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Community Health Assessment, Public Health Informatics, and Surveillance Data Sets
See more of: Community Health Planning and Policy Development