A manuscript on public health data modernization at a state level was recently published in the journal Learning Health Systems. Authored by Drs. Sripriya Rajamani, Genevieve Melton-Meaux, and a team of investigators at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), the paper describes the outcomes, individuals, and processes cultivated through a partnership between MDH and UMN to support data modernization through an LHS approach.

MDH is currently involved in a number of projects related to the data modernization initiative (DMI), a multi-year national effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop public health data infrastructure for faster, better data collection. Over the past several years, the UMN-MDH partnership has expanded to include work to facilitate over 13 projects with the core DMI team at MDH and the UMN team, including trainees and faculty.

These projects include informatics workforce development through an assessment of the MDH workforce’s informatics capacity and training on public health informatics, which was developed in partnership with the Public Health Informatics Institute. Additionally, the MDH and UMN teams have worked to expand, standardize, and exchange public health data within MDH and with local healthcare and public health systems.

The manuscript also shares future opportunities to continue to cultivate the bidirectional benefits of this partnership, as well as approaches that have been more or less successful as a means for other similar partnerships to learn from Minnesota’s experience. 

Read the full article here.