CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATICS

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Washington proposes to establish the Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics: Improving the Public's Health through Information Integration. Partners include the Washington Department of Health, Kitsap County Health District, the Public Health Informatics Institute, and Inland Northwest Health Services. This Center will focus on three research topics: Project 1 (Surveillance Integration and Decision Support) will develop public health surveillance methods within the emerging health information infrastructure. We will: 1) develop methods by which regional health information organizations can enhance public health surveillance; 2) develop and evaluate a probabilistic decision support system classifier for disease surveillance; and 3) investigate the usability of a web survey-assessment system for population tracking and disease reporting. Project 2 (Customizable Knowledge Management Repository System for Prevention: Design, Development, and Evaluation) will develop an interactive digital knowledge management system to support the collection, management, and retrieval of public health documents, data, earning objects, and tools. The focus will be the development of tools, including concept mapping services that will provide rapid access to answers from a variety of key resources, including the "gray literature". The system will focus on the application of natural language processing and information visualization techniques. Components will include a knowledge repository system, integrative web services and a role-based user interface to support access to information resources for enhanced decision-making by practitioners. The long-term goal is to create an environment in which practitioners can pose questions in "plain English" and receive answers to their questions rather than simply a list of possible places to look for answers. Project 3 Supporting Integration: Work Process, Change Management and System Modeling) will: 1) refine and validate an integrated model of public health information technology work; 2) provide a Change Management Toolkit to support public health agencies in making changes to current practice called for by the integrated model; and 3) build a Virtual Public Health Information Technology Environment to serve as a testbed and to explore informatics challenges. These projects are supported by three cores: Administration Core (Core A), Epidemiology and Biostatistics Science Core (Core B), and Technology and Design Science Core (Core C).