Action Plan for Child Health Information Systems

Representatives of 55 organizations and government agencies met in Atlanta in early December to recommend next steps for development of child health information systems that meet medical care and public health needs. The diverse group of stakeholders identified actions that should be taken immediately and in the next three to five years to integrate the information about the health care that a child receives, from the moment he or she is born, in a simple yet comprehensive format so that the end user (parents, families, health professionals, insurers and policymakers) can take all appropriate actions.

The meeting was convened by All Kids Count, a program of the Public Health Informatics Institute. All Kids Count is supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to foster integration of child health information systems. AIRA was one of the 17 organizations and government agencies that co-sponsored the meeting.

Meeting participants worked in groups for two days to forge recommendations in the areas of governance, economic issues, information infrastructure, and data use. Common threads in the recommendations were:

• The need to develop a national coalition of stakeholders to promote integration of separate child health information systems within the context of ongoing national initiatives such as NHII and PHIN;
• The need to develop the business and policy cases for integrated child health information systems;
• The need to develop agreement on standards for collecting and transferring information; and
• The need to get the word out about the importance of integrating separate child health information systems to improve health and health services.

A summary of the meeting, along with slides of the presentations and the workgroup recommendations, will be posted to the All Kids Count web site, www.allkidscount.org, in mid-January 2004. A final, comprehensive summary will be available in mid-March. In addition, the meeting summary and other information about integration of child health information systems will be published in the professional literature in 2005.

All Kids Count/Public Health Informatics Institute will plan and seek support for a follow-up meeting to discuss progress and develop a more detailed and prioritized action plan in mid-2004.

Note: The conclusions and recommendations of the conference are those of conference participants and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsors.

For more information, contact: Terry Hastings, thastings@phii.org

January 2004 SnapShots Headlines