2023 State Healthcare IT Connect Annual Summit

The Covid-19 pandemic stressed public health infrastructure across the country. Historical infrastructure deficits hindered public health departments’ ability to respond to the health emergency in a nimble manner. Specifically, hospitals and public health agencies had limited capacity for interoperability, relying on manually entered data with data lag and error potential.

As opposed to being mired by the challenges, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) targeted needs, prioritized actions, and turned deficiencies into opportunities. Iowa’s public health leaders are committed to collaboratively protecting and improving the health of their citizens through innovation and partnership. They serve as the backbone for the public health infrastructure and their guiding principles of accountability, equity, and quality inform and drive data-driven and evidence-based priorities.

As part of their pandemic response, IDPH partnered closely with CyncHealth Iowa, the statewide designated health information exchange (HIE) and a health data utility to forge a unique relationship focused on advancing public health infrastructure and promoting health equity in both the private and public sectors. This ability to collaboratively implement cohesive and comprehensive solutions with sustainability was crucial to long term solutions. The partnership offered a cost-effective, efficient path to interoperability by using existing data pipelines, reducing duplicated data entry, and visualizing data for rapid application.

We will discuss how establishing this foundational relationship has allowed the partners to address infrastructure issues quickly and effectively such as the inadequacy of the previous state HIE infrastructure, engage healthcare providers across an individual’s health journey, and streamline public health reporting with a focus on completeness and quality, and access to real-time data.