Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Apr 19;30(5):1000-1005.
doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocad033.

Enhancing the nation's public health information infrastructure: a report from the ACMI symposium

Brian E Dixon  1   2 , Catherine Staes  3 , Jessica Acharya  4 , Katie S Allen  1   2 , Joel Hartsell  5 , Theresa Cullen  6 , Leslie Lenert  7   8 , Donald W Rucker  9   10 , Harold Lehmann  11
Affiliations

Enhancing the nation's public health information infrastructure: a report from the ACMI symposium

Brian E Dixon et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed multiple weaknesses in the nation's public health system. Therefore, the American College of Medical Informatics selected "Rebuilding the Nation's Public Health Informatics Infrastructure" as the theme for its annual symposium. Experts in biomedical informatics and public health discussed strategies to strengthen the US public health information infrastructure through policy, education, research, and development. This article summarizes policy recommendations for the biomedical informatics community postpandemic. First, the nation must perceive the health data infrastructure to be a matter of national security. The nation must further invest significantly more in its health data infrastructure. Investments should include the education and training of the public health workforce as informaticians in this domain are currently limited. Finally, investments should strengthen and expand health data utilities that increasingly play a critical role in exchanging information across public health and healthcare organizations.

Keywords: health information interoperability; information systems; public health; public health informatics; public health schools.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

References

    1. Dixon BE, Caine VA, Halverson PK.. Deficient response to COVID-19 makes the case for evolving the public health system. Am J Prev Med 2020; 59 (6): 887–91. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kliff S, Sanger-Katz M. Bottleneck for U.S. coronavirus response: the fax machine. The New York Times. July 13, 2020.
    1. Sittig DF, Singh H.. COVID-19 and the need for a national health information technology infrastructure. JAMA 2020; 323 (23): 2373–4. - PubMed
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 10 Essential Public Health Services. March 18, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/publichealthservices/essentialhe.... Accessed October 1, 2022.
    1. Friedman CP, Ozbolt JG, Masys DR; American College of Medical Informatics. Toward a new culture for biomedical informatics: report of the 2001 ACMI symposium. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2001; 8 (6): 519–26. - PMC - PubMed