Our Story
Since 1992 PHII has assisted health organizations in defining and leveraging the power of information systems to meet public health needs. Our history tells a story of innovation and impact on the vanguard of an emerging and rapidly evolving discipline.
1992-2006
Beginnings
ALL KIDS COUNT AND THE LAUNCH OF PHII
1992
All Kids Count
All Kids Count, a program funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is founded and instrumental in the development of immunization registries – one of the first widely implemented public health information systems – and in the development of integrated child health information systems.
Becoming PHII
All Kids Count expands focus beyond child health and becomes the Public Health Informatics Institute. PHII works at all levels of domestic public health, reinforcing its commitment to applying the best practices of the emerging field of public health informatics to drive more effective and efficient use of data in public health.
1996
Connections
PHII partners with the Health Resources and Services Administration to build Connections, which provided expertise and support in developing and implementing integrated child health information systems through integrated child health data.
2007-2014
Putting Down Roots
TURNING TO CAPACITY-BUILDING FOR HEALTH AGENCIES
2007
The launch of the Informatics Academy
The Academy grew from a weeklong course in informatics into a robust workforce development program offering courses that built informatics capacity across foundational areas in U.S. public health departments and global public health practice. The Academy now specializes in providing workforce development to immunization programs.
Creating CRDM
The Collaborative Requirements Development Methodology™ (CRDM) is formed as a strategic approach to assisting public health organizations to apply and manage information effectively to advance their population health goals.
Helping agencies become more informatics-savvy
PHII develops the Informatics-Savvy Health Department toolkit to assist public health agencies in identifying their own informatics gaps and building in-house capabilities. The toolkit includes a self-assessment tool that focuses on three core elements: informatics vision and strategy, skilled workforce, and a well-designed and effectively used information system. This resource has been accessed over 3,000 times since its inception, informing informatics modernization efforts within health agencies.
2015-2018
Expanding
TO A GLOBAL REACH
2015
Transforming health worker allocation in Mozambique
Developed tool for the Mozambique Ministry of Health to address the country’s rampant healthcare worker shortage. This tool places available workers in the most optimal manner, ensuring that HIV testing and treatment are accessible by all, and empowering Mozambique’s Ministry of Health to work toward national goals to reduce HIV transmission.
CHAMPS
PHII partners with Emory Global Health Institute on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded project CHAMPS, an initiative that determines the most common causes of death for children under the age of five in low- and middle-income countries. Data are gathered through on-site disease surveillance centers to better inform the strategies of future child mortality prevention programs and reduce the rate of childhood deaths around the world.
Marking the milestones to NTD elimination
USAID engages PHII to help measure progress toward the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) — historically underserved diseases affecting people living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries. PHII will track progress through the launch of a new, modernized database to aid in long-term NTD control, elimination and eradication goals.
2019 - present
Looking Ahead
tackling emerging public health challenges
2019
Bridging gaps in data exchange between healthcare and public health
PHII launches multi-million dollar effort, Digital Bridge. This initiative connects experts in public health, healthcare and health information technology to build solutions for two-way data exchange between healthcare and public health. Digital Bridge solutions are positioned to scale across health systems nationally to improve the efficiency, accuracy and reliability of crucial health data exchange.
Contact tracing for COVID-19
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. revealed the urgency for digital contact tracing tools to supplement traditional contact tracing efforts. PHII led a national forum of experts in public health and private sector technology to produce key guidance that supports public health in deciding the appropriate technology that would enhance their traditional contact tracing efforts. Now, public health authorities in more than 50 countries, states and regions have developed exposure notification apps to track and fight COVID-19.
Joining the fight against the opioid epidemic
To amplify the availability of information to understand and improve maternal and infant health, PHII developed MAT-LINK in collaboration with the CDC. MAT-LINK is a surveillance network of clinical sites that shares data on maternal and child health outcomes associated with opioid use disorder during pregnancy to help improve policies, clinical practice recommendations, and clinical decision-making for treatment. PHII built the IT infrastructure that allows these sites to share linked data, perform data quality analyses and determine lessons learned.
Creating an immunization learning community
PHII created a learning community that brought states together to learn from each other as they built, designed, and implemented immunization registries. These registries maintain immunization status data on over 90 percent of children in almost every state.
PHII is a program of the Task Force for Global Health, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded as the Task Force for Child Survival in 1984. The Task Force is affiliated with Emory University.