“… In a pretty unique way, DirectTrust already released a number of On-Demand healthcare interoperability sessions in advanced of the [DirectTrust Summit]. I checked out the session “Addressing Public Health Data Interoperability: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic” by Ed Simcox, Chief Strategy Officer at LifeOmic and Former CTO of HHS, which was a great look into why Public Health data isn’t available where it’s needed. In fact, he talks about the “Infodemic” which was first highlighted during SARS and was seen during COVID-19 as well.”
What’s the cause of this Infodemic in Public Health?
“Simcox pointed out in his presentation how the 10th amendment has made it difficult for HHS to be able to aggregate all the public health data in one place since much of the collection of that data was ceded to the states. This has made it difficult for HHS to be able to access this data to use it for public health efforts. However, he then shared that Congress has asked the CDC to collect and aggregate this data in multiple acts in 2006, 2013, 2019, and again in 2020.”
Why hasn’t the CDC acted on this request from Congress?
“There are likely a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest challenges within HHS is the classic silo problem where each department within HHS has different funding, regulation, and requirements when it comes to the data they collect. All of these silos make it difficult for HHS to take an enterprise approach to data when each area acts independently.”
“In Simcox’s presentation, he’s not without hope. In fact, he suggests that health data liquidity is possible and would cost a fraction of the $1 billion of public health funding that was provided as part of the CARES act. He suggests that HHS create a centralized Public Health Data Gateway that would facilitate the sharing of health information across all of healthcare…” Read the full article here.
Source: Why Isn’t Health Data Available Where It’s Needed Including Public Health? – By John Lynn, June 4, 2021. Healthcare IT Today.
