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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Bill Alfred, MS, GISP, Office of Planning, Evaluation & Data Analysis, Florida Department of Health, 2585 Merchants Row, Suite 105M, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1706, Yvonne Claudio, MS, Executive Director, National Association for Public Health Information Technology, One Research Court, Suite 450, Rockville, MD 20850, Chris Chalmers, MS, GIS Coordinator, Nebraska Health and Human Services, 301 Centennial Mall South, 3rd Floor, Regulation and Licensure, Lincoln, NE 68509-5007, 402-471-4598, chris.chalmers@hhss.ne.gov, and Kevin Gibbs, MUP&P, Department of Public Health, City of Chicago, 333 S State St, Room 200, Chicago, IL 60604.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is increasingly being recognized as critical for the public health industry. While the technology has the capacity to support services and functions across a health department, in many health departments GIS use is initiated within only one or two services, and the solution is not fully leveraged to support functions across all health department units.

This presentation looks at GIS adoption in health departments, focusing on the management and diffusion of the technology within an organization. The presentation highlights the findings of a best practice review led by the National Association for Public Health Information Technology (NAPHIT)—a nonprofit professional organization that represents the Chief Information Officers and Directors of Information Technology in health departments across the country.

The authors present the strategies implemented by several health departments to fully leverage GIS within their organizations. The presentation starts by discussing the key features of GIS solutions, and the Health Department (HD) programs and services that can benefit from the technology. Best practices in enterprise use of GIS are outlined, presenting how health department GIS initiatives tie into State and local level GIS initiatives, and the key strategies to consider in leveraging the GIS technology, expertise, and allocated resources in health departments. Presenters will identify key health department stakeholders in such initiatives, and present the challenges and opportunities that a health department faces in deploying GIS across the entire health department enterprise.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate the key functionality of GIS.
• Understand the best practices in deploying GIS in HDs
• Recognize the interface of HD GIS initiatives with municipal/county/state GIS initiatives
• Describe the extent to which GIS can support programs across a HD
• Prioritize the key activities implicit to enterprise deployment of GIS
• Identify key stakeholders in GIS deployment activities

Keywords: Geographic Information Systems, Information Technology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation