As the Department of Public Health (DPH) nears its one-year anniversary as a stand-alone agency, the Information Services workgroup continues to make strides in addressing the information service needs of the department and county public health offices across the state.

The main goal of the Information Services (IS) workgroup is to help build the infrastructure to get public health's data from the county offices into a central repository or data warehouse.

DPH Information Services describes the array of data and technology resources used to support DPH's programs and business units. For example, if a public health employee needs accurate and reliable data for program reporting, that falls under information services. Moreover, if a DPH employee needs a new computer system to do his or her job that, too, is information services.

One of the group's first accomplishments was creating a formal DPH Information Services Governance Council. This IS Governance Council is chaired by the DPH chief information officer and has representation from throughout the department, to include two district health directors, two district MIS directors and key DPH executive leadership team members, to include the chief financial officer, chief operating officer, director of health promotion, director of health protection, and chief of staff.  Collectively, this body's aim is to ensure DPH's information services needs are met in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

The IS workgroup is also well underway towards developing and implementing a new Statewide WIC Information System. This was a monumental milestone in that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) Branch has upgraded DPH's status to "system planning underway." The end result will be a system that reduces fraud and better serves over 300,000 WIC participants.

Lastly, the group is in the initial planning stage of defining a Master Client Index (MCI). The MCI will allow DPH to reduce dual participation throughout department programs and provide a "golden" view of those DPH serves. DPH will also be able to share client data with other state human service agencies so that Georgia citizens do not have to apply multiple times to receive benefits.  

As you can see, information services is about data and technology.  But most importantly, it is about serving people and doing so using the best information and technology available.

-Story by Perry Sims, chief information officer, DPH