Public Health Informatics Innovation and Dissemination through the Beacon Communities

Study Design: The purpose of this study was to understand how public health informatics innovations occur and are disseminated. Methods included a series of interviews with representatives from a subset of the Beacon Communities and review of Beacon Community program documentation and relevant literature. The Beacon Community program provides funding to selected communities to demonstrate how health IT can improve quality, safety, efficiency, and population health. We identified factors that have contributed to successful innovation in health IT, synthesized lessons learned and essential factors for innovation dissemination, and provided recommendations for the Beacon Communities and public health agencies for future innovation and dissemination.

Population Studied: Beacon Communities creating and disseminating health IT innovation focused on public and/or population health.

Principal Findings: A variety of factors influence health IT innovation and dissemination including policy, funding, personnel acceptance of innovation, and usability of the innovation. The 17 Beacon Communities are innovating in immunization rates, health information exchange, and other types of data sharing to improve the health of their patients and communities. Four communities utilized both registries to track patient immunization status and clinical decision support tools to help remind providers or patients of needed immunizations. There are a wider range of interventions and health IT tools being employed in the area of health information exchange. Fourteen communities are employing health information exchange to improve chronic condition care at the population and provider levels. We have developed lessons learned and best practices to implement and disseminate innovations by synthesizing Beacon Community efforts with models of innovation from the heath IT literature. Other communities can benefit from the synthesis of the health IT models with lessons learned in order to successfully implement and disseminate current and future health IT innovations.