After a five year hiatus, JPHIT was reactivated in 2023. This site is currently undergoing updates.
JPHIT: Coordinating national action for tomorrow's public health capabilities today
As clinical care transforms, public health agencies strive to establish interoperable information capabilities that are profoundly effected by public resources and policy. JPHIT addresses an increasing need for collective, consensus-based decisions on the development, implementation and use of information services, and technology standards, systems and policies. JPHIT is a coalition of nine national public health associations that help U.S. governmental public health agencies build modern information systems across a spectrum of public health programs. We integrate the expertise and reach of national associations to advance public health information system capabilities by identifying synergies, building consensus, and facilitating action.
Blog
JPHIT's blog is a channel for news on national public health informatics events, policy, trainings, and resources.
We don’t have to imagine the decades-old vision of electronic public health case reporting for much longer; we are closer now to electronic case reporting (eCR) than ever before.
Welcome to JPHIT's new blog! JPHIT's blog will channel news about JPHIT activities, events and resources, raise awareness of national public health informatics work, and support perspectives and positions on national informatics policy issues. Subscribe to the Feedburner email alerts or RSS feed today!
Resources
JPHIT produces briefs and policy statements on public health informatics issues of national significant. Examples include: Meaningful use program, electronic health record technology certification, health information technology interoperability, and public health surveillance.
JPHIT, along with the All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) Council, the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC) and the Wisconsin Health Information Organization (WHIO), served as amici and contributed to a brief in support of Alfred J. Gobeille, Chair of the Vermont Green Mountain Care Board, during a case versus Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
Across the nation, public health practitioners are in the midst of revolutionary change in the abundance and availability of public health data and information. As such, JPHIT developed three recommendations for actions that public health agencies and stakeholders must take to realize the full public health potential of this data revolution and significant federal investments in HIT. TThe recommendations provide a framework for discussing the importance of, and advocating for, investment in and development and implementation of HIT.
The Joint Public Health Informatics Taskforce (JPHIT) recently delivered a testimony before the Health IT Policy and Standards Committee's Public Health Taskforce to inform the Committee's development of health information technology policy and standards recommendations for Zika preparedness and response.
Electronic case reporting (eCR) can dramatically boost reporting and public health surveillance capabilities by automating case information submission and exchange. Using an interoperable set of information technologies, eCR can ensure critical case communications among patients, healthcare providers, public health authorities, and those at risk of illness. If fully developed and properly used, the eCR infrastructure would help state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) public health agencies to...
As Americans become more mobile, so too must their health information. Public health agencies are increasingly called on to electronically exchange health information outside their jurisdictional borders. With differences in state privacy laws and local ordinances, such exchange frequently requires a data exchange agreement. This guidance document was developed by JPHIT to provide practical advice and information to public health managers and staff who craft such agreements.
Obstacles ranging from underdeveloped information technology (IT) infrastructure to insufficient workforce and capacity have made public health informatics seem either intimidating or vastly inaccessible to many LHDs. Despite these obstacles, there is a place for informatics within every LHD and “Public Health Informatics,” a new multi-article supplement in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice (JPHMP), explores that niche. Penned by a cross-cutting range of experts in the fields of public health and informatics, who hail from government, academia, and the nonprofit sector, the supplement provides diverse perspectives and balanced insights into the current state of local public health informatics, the future direction of the field, and what’s required to ensure local health departments aren’t left behind.