Revolutionary CDC Plan: 1st Ever Strategy Unveiled to Modernize Public Health Data
CDC Plan Aims to Address Major Challenges and Strengthen Public Health Systems to Improve Health Outcomes
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently released its first-ever strategic plan on public health data. The plan aims to address several key public health missions and help the nation respond quickly to health threats, promote health equity, and improve health outcomes.
One of the major issues that the plan seeks to address is the length of time it takes for data on some reportable conditions to become available in national datasets or be disseminated in an accessible and interoperable format. According to the report, it can take longer than 12 months for such data to become available.
To address this issue, the plan outlines several goals, including strengthening the core of existing public health data systems, speeding up access to analytics and automated solutions, visualizing insights to inform actionable recommendations, and developing interoperability across public health data as a whole.
The plan also notes that it will begin to address other major challenges, such as the fact that around 70 percent of healthcare organizations use fax to send or receive care records. Additionally, epidemiologists can spend up to 80 percent of their working hours simply cleaning data due to the lack of interoperability. Furthermore, it typically takes more than six months for systems to develop and rework data use agreements.
The plan also establishes the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, which will be responsible for overseeing the execution of the plan’s data modernization efforts, including identifying ways to address gaps in public health data nationwide. The office will have two-year accountability milestones for all key public health missions.
The CDC also notes that it will establish an internal steering committee to provide guidance on longer-term public health data systems, monitor and provide input on progress, establish mechanisms to solicit programmatic input, and identify priority needs.
In summary, the CDC’s first-ever strategic plan on public health data seeks to address several key public health missions and improve the nation’s ability to respond quickly to health threats, promote health equity, and improve health outcomes. The plan aims to address major challenges, including the length of time it takes for data to become available and the lack of interoperability across public health data systems. With the establishment of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, the CDC hopes to modernize public health data nationwide and ultimately improve the nation’s public health.
About PreciseMDX
PreciseMDX empowers labs to deliver a transformative digital health experience that providers and patients expect. Much more than a portal, the PreciseMDX platform creates an end-to-end digital health ecosystem that automates and simplifies every step of the diagnostic testing experience, leveraging the ubiquitous power and convenience of mobile device technology. PreciseMDX brings more than 20 years of digital transformation know-how from prior roles in healthcare, government, and other industries to solve customers’ biggest data management and patient engagement needs. Founded in 2020, the Silicon Valley-based company works with customers worldwide including the United States, Switzerland and Canada.
