INSIGHT & INSPIRATION FROM APHA’S 2012 MIDYEAR MEETING

More documents

Recommendations

Info

38 Survive All In This Friends Prevention, Strategies & Thrive Together For Health Opportunity & Equity for Health Building Systems for Action The impact of health information isn’t in its collection; it’s about how the information is put to use. And putting it to use means sharing, collaborating on and creating systems that leverage health resources and workers already on the ground. That was the big message from Dan Jensen, associate director at Olmsted County, Minn., Public Health Services. Introduced as an “evangelist” for health information technology, Jensen reported that the agency is in the midst of working to become “informatics savvy.” In other words, transforming data into effective practice. But to make electronic health records and information systems “work for us,” information technology must be connected to patient outcomes — that’s where we’ll drive change, Jensen told session attendees. But what was the “secret sauce” to making that happen, he asked. The answer was building communities of practice. Today, the public health agency works with three such communities: one consisting of large medical providers, another of mid-sized providers (which includes local public health) and the last of under-utilized organizations and workers, such as nursing homes and school nurses. But coming together as general communities of practice wasn’t good enough, Jensen said; it’s critical to engage all stakeholders, including residents. “We’re used to bringing people together and having these conversations,” he said. “Now, we don’t have the dollars that primary care providers have...but public health does have a lot of experience in bringing communities of practice together, working together to build systems.”
39 Survive All In This Friends Prevention, Strategies & Thrive Together For Health Opportunity & Equity for Health Using this model — information + communities of practice = improved outcomes — is already seeing success. One such area is in childhood asthma. Of the 84,000 schoolchildren in southeast Minnesota, 5,000 had high enough levels of asthma to warrant having an asthma action plan on file with their schools. Unfortunately, at the time the public health agency took up the issue, there were less than 400 paper-based action plans on file — “that’s pretty scary,” Jensen said. It meant that school nurses didn’t always know how to protect students’ health or even which students were living with asthma. So working within a community of practice of schools, providers, public health and parents, the effort first took aim at improving the flow of paperwork, which resulted in adding thousands more asthma action plans to school files as of <strong>2012</strong>. Jensen and colleagues are now working to build an electronic school nurse portal called “Kids eHealth,” a health information exchange that will initially focus on asthma but could be used for kids with seizures, allergies and diabetes too, Jensen said. In talking with 14 focus groups of diverse stakeholders, Jensen said they learned that parents were comfortable in letting asthma action plans be included in the portal, as long as it was only public health staff and nurses who had access. With the new portal, school nurses will be able to log in no matter what school they’re at, view the asthma action plans relevant to that school and be prepared in case of an asthma attack. “We can build better systems,” Jensen said. From session 2003/2008, Technological Strategies to Advance Public Health, June 27 Lydia Ogden, director of health reform strategy at CDC, speaks during the closing session.
Page 1 and 2: Survive All In This Friends Prevent
Page 3 and 4: 1 Survive All In This Friends Preve
Page 13 and 14: 11 Survive All In This Friends Prev
Page 39: 37 Survive All In This Friends Prev
Page 47: YMCA HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES INITIATI

INSIGHT & INSPIRATION FROM APHA’S 2012 MIDYEAR MEETING

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?