New directions in public health surveillance: Using electronic health records to monitor chronic disease

Abstract

The oceans of detailed clinical data are teeming with potential for public health. The increasing focus on population health within the health care community has created curiosity and desire for public health surveillance methods, tools, partnerships, and insights. Information partnerships between public health and health care present opportunities to answer many surveillance questions that have been unanswerable in the past. Examples include actively monitoring disease control, prescribed treatments, and health care utilization for people with chronic diseases. In addition, health information exchanges and data aggregators are powerful assets to provide technical infrastructure and data contribution services with public health. Obtaining access to such data requires the creation of a win-win value proposition, establishing sound governance structures and procedures that build and maintain trust, and bringing value to the table in the form of population health, epidemiologic, and analytic expertise to prevent and manage chronic disease in communities and nationally.