CDC Awards Over $8M to Support Public Health, EHR Implementation
The multimillion-dollar public health infrastructure investment granted to the Baltimore City Health Department will include an EHR implementation to streamline patient data access and interoperability.
The Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) has been awarded more than $8 million through a CDC grant to build up public health infrastructure, starting with an EHR implementation.
The grant was awarded on December 1, 2022, as part of a $3.2B federal funding effort to assist state, local, and territorial jurisdictions across the United States in supporting their public health workforce and infrastructure.
“This grant supports direct spending on much-needed resources that invest in our depleted workforce following the aftermath of the pandemic,” Letitia Dzirasa, MD, health commissioner of BCHD, said in a press release. “We will use this important funding for public health infrastructure, allowing us to establish more resilient internal systems, processes, and protocols.”
BCHD experienced tremendous pandemic strain as it was one of few health departments to operate throughout COVID-19, increasing burnout levels throughout the agency, the press release stated.
With this new funding, the health department plans to bolster its data infrastructure and capabilities. A new EHR system will advance interoperability for BCHD, providing access to health recording from disparate health systems.
Through this EHR implementation, BCHD epidemiologists and data scientists will be able to follow future viral outbreaks and other public health issues throughout the city.
The EHR implementation will also benefit the community, providing residents with electronic test ordering capabilities, a patient portal, telehealth, and a secure email platform to facilitate patient-provider communication.
When COVID-19 broke out, it became apparent that public health entities needed greater infrastructure support to ease patient data sharing.
The COVID-19 response required individual and community EHR data collection from healthcare organizations, public health departments, and socioeconomic indicators, but those capabilities were deployed differently across organizations.
After these inefficiencies were highlighted, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) examined ways to help streamline the collection of public health data.
Particularly, the agency launched the Strengthening the Technical Advancement & Readiness of Public Health via the Health Information Exchange Program to reinforce public health reporting.
Recipients of the STAR HIE Program funding explored innovative HIE services to support public health agencies and communities severely impacted by the pandemic.
Other federal agencies also followed ONC’s efforts to increase the availability of COVID-19 data.
In November 2021, CMS finalized policies requiring healthcare providers who treat Medicare patients to share more health data with public health agencies. The agency encouraged hospitals to take similar action in August 2022.