Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office (PHSIPO)

PHSIPO in Action

• Manages and supports three large, cross-cutting surveillance systems: 1) the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS), 2) BioSense 2.0, and the 3) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
• Provides informatics and information technology (IT) services that support surveillance systems and other program services managed by state and local public health departments and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programs.
• Serves as the home at CDC for addressing cross-cutting issues in public health surveillance and informatics, involving collaborating with partners internal and external to CDC.
• Supports preparedness and emergency response efforts by providing information from PHSIPO-managed surveillance systems and providing informatics and IT services that enable the CDC Countermeasure Tracking System and the CDC Laboratory Response Network.
• Shapes national biosurveillance policies by engaging with the offices of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the White House National Security Staff, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies to help develop, for example, the National Biosurveillance Strategy for Human Health (2010) and the National Biosurveillance Strategy (2012).
• Hosts the National Public Health Surveillance and Biosurveillance Advisory Committee, which focuses on cross-cutting surveillance issues affecting CDC and state and local public health departments.
• Manages the CDC Assessment Initiative, which, for more than two decades, has supported state and local public health departments in developing new information sources and methods for population health assessment, as defined by the Institute of Medicine.
• Develops new and innovative approaches for population health monitoring, such as new information sources and survey methods, and improved methods for data analysis and visualization.
• Develops new and innovative informatics and IT tools, including uses of the Internet cloud and other approaches to foster information sharing and use, the development of mobile applications for public health, and prevention-oriented decision support for clinical providers and state and local public health departments.
• Supports state and local public health departments and CDC programs in maximizing the benefits of expanding health information automation, including fulfilling the population health objectives of the HHS Meaningful Use program, representing and engaging partners in nationwide discussions about standards for electronic data and information exchange, and assisting partners in interpreting and implementing new standards.
• Identifies and disseminates information about best practices in public health surveillance and informatics.
• Sponsors CDC's Surveillance Science Advisory Committee, an internal CDC employee organization.
• Monitors developments in healthcare, public health, or IT that will affect surveillance and informatics practice.

PHSIPO Divisions and Activities

• The Division of Behavioral Surveillance (DBS) collaborates with states and U.S. territories to obtain integrated information on disease, risk behavior, and health for use by state and local public health authorities and CDC programs. DBS plans, coordinates, and implements surveillance activities related to BRFSS. The division also conducts other specialized surveys to support CDC programs and obtain data on important emerging health issues such as influenza and mental health.
• The Division of Informatics Practice, Policy, and Coordination (DIPPC) mission is to improve the practice and translation of public health informatics through outreach and coordination. DIPPC's work includes fostering the adoption of informatics standards by CDC programs, providing informatics expertise and consultation services to CDC and partners, and ensuring that informatics activities at CDC and with partners align with emerging health IT polices.
• The Division of Informatics Solutions and Operations (DISO) provides a portfolio of informatics and IT solutions of choice that supports public health surveillance information exchange. DISO translates public health needs into information processes that ensure the exchange and delivery of high-quality health-related data. The division manages shared services and applications to reduce the total cost of operation and improve return on investment.
• The Division of Notifiable Diseases and Healthcare Information (DNDHI) helps protect the health of the U.S. population by rapidly identifying and monitoring disease outbreaks and harmful health effects of hazardous conditions and by tracking them over time. DNDHI leads the integration of CDC's statistical, epidemiologic, and informatics methods for public health surveillance and evaluation. Its flagship systems are BioSense, a collaborative syndromic surveillance system, and NNDSS, which focuses on aggregated individual case reports of nationally notifiable infectious diseases.
• The Biosurveillance Coordination Activity (BCA) leads efforts to establish an operational national epidemiologic surveillance system for human health. BCA creates strategies, initiatives, and actions to improve U.S. response to today's health threats and hazards, including emerging disease outbreaks, environmental exposures, and disasters. BCA helps address these threats by coordinating biosurveillance efforts across multiple entities in the international, federal, state, local, and private sectors.
• The Informatics Research and Development Activity (IRDA) advances the field of public health informatics through applied research and innovation. IRDA studies, prototypes, and tests new and innovative technology-based tools and resources to maximize their effect on public health. Its Public Health Informatics Research and Development Laboratory's services include the Applied Public Health Informatics Research Cloud, prototyping, consultation, and evaluation.