Partnerships and Steering Committee discuss key needs for local public health

Individual Partnerships and the Incubator Steering Committee engage in regular planning discussions to identify key needs for local public health.  The highest priority needs identified and for which efforts will be undertaken to secure funding are:

1. Local public health departments respond to many oversight and reporting requests (e.g. audits, program reviews.) As uncoordinated requests, they lead to a substantial burden on the time and attention of local health department staff. A collaboration between local health departments and the NC Division of Public Health to better coordinate and streamline these requests would enable local health department staff to dedicate more of their time to front line efforts.
2. Local health directors believe healthcare reform will have a substantial impact on their health department’s operations and strategic direction. A systematic and detailed evaluation of this impact is an importance project to assist health departments as they position themselves for the future.
3. ARRA HITECH funding is becoming available to enable clinical practices to automate their workflows and to share digital patient information with one another and with patients. With their clinical practices, local public health will need support on a  range of health IT activities to leverage this funding. The highest priority activities now is the development of an incentives-based  funding model to purchase and support a common EHR for local public health.

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