title: Barriers to Local Public Health Chronic Disease Surveillance Through Health Information Exchange: A Capacity Assessment of Health Departments in the Health Information Network of South Texas.
abstract: Health information exchanges (HIEs) offer potential data sources for public health agencies to improve chronic disease surveillance; however, public health has not yet capitalized on these data. This study identified barriers that public health departments participating in the Health Information Network of South Texas face regarding HIE and community-level surveillance of chronic diseases. This study focused on 2 health departments participating in the Health Information Network of South Texas. We administered a survey to inventory the technology infrastructure of health departments and conducted semistructured interviews of the local, state, and national officials. We identified 3 barriers to using HIE for disease surveillance: insufficient skilled staff, variation in how laws are interpreted, and lack of a coordinated public health information technology strategy. We provide 4 recommendations for policy and practice: personnel capacity development, interorganizational informatics collaboration, interim approaches to clarifying the legality of bidirectional HIE until overarching legislation is enacted, and development of an enterprise architecture plan.
authors: Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, Virginia (Dr Khan); Department of Health Policy and Management, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Dr Shea); and US Department of Health & Human Services, Washington, District of Columbia (Ms Qudsi).
authors: Saad
authors: S
authors: Khan
authors: Christopher M
authors: CM
authors: Shea
authors: Hibah Khalid
authors: HK
authors: Qudsi
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000639:trends; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000592:standards; D066275:Health Information Exchange / Q000592:standards*; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D007857:Leadership; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000592:standards; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D011634:Public Health / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D000070318:Strategic Planning / Q000592:standards; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013781:Texas / Q000453:epidemiology; D000078329:Workforce