Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #120698

Barbara L. Massoudi, MPH PhD, Northrop Grumman Health Solutions, 3375 Northeast Expressway NE, Atlanta, GA 30341, 404.414.7995, barbara.massoudi@ngc.com

With publicized failure rates of close to two-thirds, systems development projects in any industry are considered high risk endeavors. Because of this, analysis of risk factors for project failure have been studied and were found to be nearly wholly related to the first three phases of systems development: requirements definition, analysis, and design. Typically, these phases are the most difficult, and least well performed by information technologists without subject matter expertise. The public health informatics specialists can play a unique role in the development of health information systems by bringing this expertise, along with skills and competencies that enable them to act as liaisons between public health customers and the technical development team. In an effort to examine the knowledge and skills most often used by practicing public health informatics specialists, we surveyed those working on a large contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of informatics competencies in their current position using a Likert scale. In this group of public health informatics specialists, the competencies, knowledge, and skills rated as most important fell in the organizational and systems management and information systems domains. The information technology domain was rated least important among this group. These most valuable knowledge and skills are those critical to successful systems requirement definition, analysis, and design.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe roles that the public health informatics specialists can play in the development of health information systems
• Describe the informatics knowledge and skills most often utilized in those roles
• Identify the informatics competencies most required by health information systems development teams.

Keywords: Public Health Informatics, Health Information Systems

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation