The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #51861

John W Sumner, PhD, Fern Johnson-Clark, PhD, and E Vowels, PhD. DC Department of Health, State Center for Health Statistics, 825 North Capitol St. N.E., Washington, DC 2002, 202-442-9031, Jsumner899@aol.com

Children’s databases in the Department of Health were created to meet the specific data needs of various programs and projects in the Department. In the absence of standard collection instruments and data collection guidelines for DOH databases, the result has been the development of DOH children’s and other databases with different electronic database storage and management systems, varying data definitions, dissimilar coding of similar variables, and general inconsistencies across these data systems.

These conditions contribute to problems with data sharing and access and thus the inability of health officials and program managers to fully assess the inter-service utilization of health resources by District children and difficulties in estimating the extent to which these children lack access to needed health care services and to generally identify gaps in services. The lack of an integrated children’s health information system in DOH precludes the effective delivery of health care services to our most precious resource, the children of the District of Columbia, and constrains our ability to ensure that their health care needs are met.

This paper describes the techniques and methodology to be used to convert, standardize and integrate the databases that contain health information on children who reside in the District of Columbia. The data integration will allow for the sharing and linking of data across health programs and the development of comprehensive Children’s Health Information and Decision Support System in the DC Department of Health.

Learning Objectives: