A Program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Standardization in the public health lab:The case for a collaborative approach

Dave RossAnita Renahan-WhitePete Kitch

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

My Theme …

Collaboration can create • Motivation for standardization• Agreements on a foundation for

standardization– Business case– Business processes– Requirements– Design

• Relationships that can sustain and maintain the standard

Our mission and approach

We advance public health practitioners’ ability to strategically apply information systems that will produce the desired impacts on the public’s health. We do this through:

• fostering collaboration, innovation and action,

• clarifying problems and identifying solutions,

• crafting meaningful, yet practical measures of performance linking system value to public health strategic goals.

Our work within the IT Life Cycle

• Use/Evaluate/Plan– System performance metrics– Program performance outcomes

• Conceptualize and Plan– Governance structures– Business cases, policy cases

• Define Requirements– Business process definitions– Requirements definitions– Vendor assessments

• Design– Design specifications

Partners for rapid progress

Requirements Phase

• October 22, 2002 to April 15, 2004• 16 states and 1 county public health

volunteered as partners• APHL-PHLs-CDC-PHII partnership• Adopted an enterprise view

Results:• Comprehensive requirements adopted

nationally and owned by APHL members• Evaluated vendor products with respect to

>500 objective requirements• Available through APHL

Design Specification Phase

• Nov. 03 – May 04• Goal – delineate how the requirements

translate into specification design and standards needs

• Focused on 6 core business processes:– Specimen submission– Specimen request– Specimen scheduling– Test preparation– Recording and verification– Results reporting– QA/QC

• 25 states and NYC + CDC

Implications for PHDSC

• Thinking together makes good cents$• Partnership is a framework for identifying

needed standards and for endorsing their use

• Design will highlight further standardization between:– PHLs – CDC – clinical health care– PHLs – EPA – related agencies

• PHDSC should assist in identifying all potential review partners and help to coordinate standardization when it extends beyond proprietary diads

Charlie Brown

“That’s the secret to life….replace one worry with another.”