Public Health Assessment Technology Tools PHATT Project

1
Public Health Assessment Technology Tools (PHATT)
Project

• Update for Public Health Information Technology
  Committee
• September 25, 2006

2
Overview

• PHIT Objective Study local needs for assessment
  technology tools
• Joint with Key Health Indicators Committee
• Collaborative LHJ / DOH planning on future
  information technology tools to support the work
  of community health assessment

3
PHATT Project Objectives

• Identify LHJ / DOH business needs for IT tools to
  support community health assessment
• Determine mandatory attributes of IT tools
  (functional and quality)
• Evaluate alignment between mandatory attributes
  and two existing tools (Vista, EpiQMS)
• Determine cost and infrastructure requirements to
  align existing tools with mandatory attributes
• Develop recommendations for the future

4
PHATT Advisory Committee

• Composition
• 9 LHJ, 7 DOH, 1 UW (plus 2 DOH staff)
• Assessment, IT, senior management
• Scope
• Provide guidance on assessment of business needs
  and evaluation of tools
• Develop recommendations for the future
• Contractor
• Ross and Associates

5
Assessing Business Needs

• Describe the work conducted by public health to
  carry out assessment
• Method interviews with LHJ and DOH staff
• Business needs
• Define the assessment question
• Search for, access and manage data sources
• Select parameters of interest
• Integrate and analyze data
• Report findings

6
Identifying Mandatory Attributes

• Assess the relative importance of functional
  attributes to end user groups
• Method web survey of LHJ and DOH staff
• Responses to level of need for each attribute
  were weighted to derive a single score
• Allows functional attributes to be ranked and
  compared by level of need

7
Current Status

• Alignment analysis complete
• Comparison of Vista and EpiQMS to functional
  attributes
• Software quality requirements under development
• Next stage determining cost requirements to
  bring each tool to the gold standard
• Recommendations expected by December

8
Observations and Questions

• My needs vs. the good of the whole getting
  PHATT to a system-level perspective
• Wide variation in activities, capacities, needs
  can one tool do it all?
• Tradeoffs investing in IT tools vs. investing in
  data (especially survey data)
• Training is a strong need for all parts of the
  workforce
• Datasets, data analysis, and data interpretation