Defining system requirements is the most important step in developing or acquiring any information system. A well-conceived and planned health information system can help organizations understand the need to adjust tasks or processes to be more effective or proactive in protecting community health. 

The Public Health Informatics Institute applies a collaborative approach to developing requirements for public health information systems.  Using expert facilitation, the Institute assist public health agencies in performing functional, workflow, and business process analysis. Based on an understanding of the tasks and processes performed, we help the agency define better ways to perform those processes, and support them in developing system requirements. Finally, we apply this understanding to inform detailed system design specifications.