Prior to developing a long-term informatics capacity-building strategy, an agency must first identify and act on critical success factors. This set of guidelines and considerations offers guidance for developing a strategic and operational plan.

As you identify your priorities and strategies for building an informatics-savvy health department, a critical area to develop or enhance is information governance. If an overall purpose of being informatics-savvy is to improve your health department’s or program’s use of information and information technology, then how you thoughtfully make decisions about the collection, management, uses, exchange and release of information is critical. This reference will inform the process of making information governance a component of your informatics strategy roadmap.

Many health departments are struggling with the logistics of building public health informatics capacity within their agencies, particularly creating informatics job descriptions that are not IT classifications, and knowing how to organize informatics within the agency. While there is no single, ideal way to create and organize an informatics program, there are some key considerations that can help guide decision-making.