CODI Approach

Module 1	Introduction	Unit 1 CODI Introduction
Module 2	Getting Started	Unit 1 How to Use this Toolbox
Module 3	Audiences/Roles	Unit 1 Researchers	Unit 2 Network partners	Unit 3 Legal	Unit 4 Implementers	Unit 5 Participants
Module 4	People & Processes	Unit 1 CODI Approach	Unit 2 CODI Roles & Scope	Unit 3 Clinical and Community Linkages Assessment	Unit 4 Governance Model
Module 5	Standards	Unit 1 Data Models	Unit 2 FHIR Implementation Guides
Module 6	Tools	Unit 1 Growthcleanr	Unit 2 GrowthViz	Unit 3 CODI Prevalence Queries	Unit 4 Privacy Preserving Record Linkage	Unit 5 CODI Use Cases
Module 7	Implementations	Unit 1 CODI Implementations
Module 8	Resources	Unit 1 CODI References	Unit 2 CODI Resources
Module 9	Appendices	Unit 1 Appendix A: CODI Downloads

What is the CODI Approach?

The CODI Approach section covers how to establish a new CODI collaborative. The processes included in this section can be done sequentially or out of order.

The CODI approach includes these steps:

Rally around a common goal
Conduct Programmatic Environmental Scan (PES) to identify additional clinical and community organizations for participation
Develop a shared vision among participating organizations
Identify use cases and scoping questions
Establish CODI roles
Conduct Clinical and Community Linkages Assessment (CCLA)

Successful collaboration requires people and their organizations to work together to develop a common understanding of the problems and solutions. This requires development of a common goal, a shared vision, establishing trust, and understanding the collective and individual needs and capacities of each organization. The first thing that must be done is to establish a common goal. Project champions, internal or external partners, can help promote and support the efforts to establish common goals based on the identified needs within the selected domain and help align the appropriate resources. This process can be interactive as partners join and provide input.

RALLY AROUND A common goal

CODI brings individuals and organizations together to cultivate relationships, establish policies, refine processes, and build infrastructure with the goal of sharing and linking data across sectors. Through collaborative efforts, CODI implements an approach that integrates people, processes, and technology to enhance the health and well-being of the populations they serve.

CODI creates a network for clinical and community data sharing that supports public health surveillance, research, and program evaluation.

CODI is an initiative that brings together:

people (local individuals, organizations, collaborations),
processes (data assessments, business processes, sharing, governance) and
technology (record linkage, data models, analytic tools).

These partnerships combined with the CODI technology facilitate the sharing and linking of valuable community data to make up the CODI solution.

This locally owned infrastructure supports community efforts to improve health and achieve health equity using data-driven approaches.²

PROGRAMMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN (PES)

After establishing a shared objective for creating a CODI collaborative, the next step involves identifying and evaluating partner organizations currently engaged in interventions aligned with the information goal within your community. This assessment aims to gauge their capability to actively participate in data sharing. The assessment of organizations includes answering questions on program reach, information systems, and the organization’s interest in participating in CODI. During this process, trust begins to be established among partners. Factsheets and presentations can be shared during this phase.

Once the programmatic environmental scan is complete, hold a partner information session to share information about CODI with potential partners.

Engaging partners in North Carolina

In North Carolina, 36 community partners initially were identified as potential partners using these criteria:

provide relevant services
have individual level data
supply obesity or social determinants of health (SDOH) relevant service directly
population served and geographic area represented

Potential partners were then classified into domains relevant to CODI: weight loss, chronic disease prevention, nutrition, physical activity, food insecurity, general SDOH, and if they included adults.

In North Carolina, clinical partners were also identified and assessed for their key areas related to CODI (weight interventions, SDOH screening, comorbidities, and vulnerable populations) and potential issues were flagged.

Sample slide from North Carolina process:

shared vision

Once a common goal is established, and partners and participating organizations have been identified, a shared vision can be developed.

To ensure that the network infrastructure is both useful and usable by partners, a collaborative working group needs to be established with a shared vision. The collaborative working group should include diverse partners: local partners, technical and informatics experts and subject matter experts (SMEs) in clinical care, public health, distributed data networks, data governance, and community programs.

In CODI@NC, the collaborative working group met in-person at the project outset to achieve a common understanding of the problem(s) being addressed and a shared vision of the future state that aligned to the project’s goal. This requires understanding the collective and individual needs of each organization. While each partner wants to share information, each organization has a related but specific need.

CODI’s aims to achieve different visions for different partners. Below are examples of partners needs:

Clinics: Improve understanding of which clinical or community programs are effective for which patients
Community partners: Identify and target gaps in service delivery and data on intervention effectiveness
Researchers: Enable observational research with large sample sizes
Public health: Improve surveillance and evaluation to help decision making
Policy makers: Improve understanding of opportunities to improve health through strategic interventions and resource investments

Creating a mission and vision statement

North Carolina’s CODI Collaborative Working Group developed a mission and vision statement.

Mission: CODI@NC connects and empowers organizations and clinicians with information to make decisions for improving the health and well-being of their communities through a data driven network.

NC@CODI Vision: Communities use local data connections to drive healthier decision-making and advance health equity.