Overview
Public health organizations have lagged far behind hospitals and laboratories in adopting and implementing common data standards. Yet, public health in general must move to such common data standards if it is to fulfill its mission effectively. Without common data standards, public health organizations cannot share and otherwise maximize the use of health information. Such organizations must recognize, however, that replacing local vocabularies and grammar with universal codes provides both advantages and disadvantages. A number of forces are driving public health organizations to adopt and implement common data standards, including the provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Changes in these standards will require public health organizations to make many choices—in the nature of file formats, in the electronic exchange of data, and in the degree of complexity of the formats. Fortunately for public health organizations, a number of national standard-setting bodies have developed uniform standards that can be adopted and implemented, although choosing to adopt these standards is usually a balancing act involving some painful choices. The experience of the Washington State Department of Health in adopting and implementing common data standards illustrates some of these choices.
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Jernigan, D.B., Davies, J., Sim, A. (2003). Data Standards in Public Health Informatics. In: O’Carroll, P.W., Ripp, L.H., Yasnoff, W.A., Ward, M.E., Martin, E.L. (eds) Public Health Informatics and Information Systems. Health Informatics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-22745-8_11
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