2022: Partnership in Action

As the proverb says, “If you want to go far, go together.”  When we look at the future state we want to get to, we know we’re not going there alone.

We recognize that everything we do has a ripple effect across all of public health. Partners from across public health, research, academia, private industry, and across CDC have been with DMI every step of the way, supporting us with valuable recommendations and a shared vision for what public health can be.

Below are a few highlights and happenings with our partners in 2022.

Data: Elemental to Health

Without a modern, interoperable system to move data from health care to public health, epidemiologists are left to bridge the gap via sluggish, manual processes that put the nation at risk. The Data: Elemental to Health campaign advocates for sustained funding for public health surveillance through DMI. In 2022, the campaign stressed the need for annual resources for state, local, and territorial health departments, stating that “DMI is the single most important investment to ensure continued progress in modernizing our public health data infrastructure.”

Advancing world-class data and analytics at CDC

In 2022, a new Data and Surveillance Workgroup was formed to support the Advisory Committee to the Director and look at agency-wide activities related to data modernization. The workgroup brings together a balanced group of subject matter experts from inside and outside the government space to look at our existing challenges from a more holistic perspective and recommend solutions.

Extending the modernization conversation

CDC Foundation helps us go further and do more with DMI. In Spring 2022, the “Lights, Camera, Action: The Future of Public Health” summit convened to discuss the data and technology challenges faced by public health. We are also leveraging CDC Foundation to extend the conversation even further through various listening sessions with private industry and STLT practitioners.

Innovation Partnership

DMI is working in partnership with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) to create pandemic-ready tools and systems for health departments, modernize the hiring process at CDC, conduct “discovery sprints” to learn quickly about some of the biggest challenges facing public health data and surveillance, and reimagine how data flows between CDC, state and local jurisdictions, and healthcare.

Peer-to-peer learning

The Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) brought together a DMI Learning Community with DMI Directors and their teams from 64 jurisdictions funded by the ELC Cooperative Agreement. Regular calls offer a place to share practical knowledge, build partnerships, collaborate around common challenges, and highlight solutions. In addition to the DMI Learning Community, once a year PHII brings the DMI Directors and their teams together for a three-day virtual workshop to focus their efforts and energy on moving their data modernization projects forward.

A new alliance for healthcare data exchange

As a multi-sector alliance across public health, healthcare, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector, the Helios FHIR® Accelerator is a flagship example of how to help public health benefit from the widespread transformation of digital health data. In 2022, we began actively working with healthcare providers and insurers on ways to access immunization history information to help our partners on the frontlines improve vaccine coverage rates.