On May 12, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and Rush University Medical Center will host a free webinar titled “The Impact of Rapidly Developed Health Data Tools on Public Health Information.”
Leaders from the Medical Center including Bala Hota, MD, vice president and chief analytics officer, Rush University Medical and Casey A. Frankenberger, PhD, chief research informatics officer, will share a detailed overview of the comprehensive cloud-based hub created for COVID-19 data. The Medical Center collaborated with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) to create the data hub, which improved care during the pandemic and allowed Chicago-area hospitals to better prepare for the ebbs and flows of COVID-positive patients.
“Leaders at Rush and CDPH stepped up at the onset of the pandemic, creating a critical information hub focused on COVID-19 data from our fellow citizens here in Chicago,” said Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE, chief executive officer, AHIMA. “Their foresight helped improve patient care and save lives, and I’m thrilled AHIMA members will have an opportunity to learn about this important initiative.”
During the webinar, Hota and Frankenberger will discuss how the hub enriches the surveillance, data reporting, and tracking of COVID-19 infections. They also will speak to how they considered data governance, secure transfer methods for data exchange and storage, analytics capabilities, and more when developing the data hub.
“The past year has been difficult for healthcare systems, but I’m proud of how the Medical Center continued to adapt and innovate during the pandemic,” says Hota. “COVID-19 revealed how critical data sharing is, particularly when we are looking to stave off a pandemic. Tools like the one we will discuss could ultimately help identify issues or even new syndromes. It also has the potential to be an infrastructure model that helps us better combat chronic disease and major causes of morbidity.”
Those interested in attending the webinar can contact AHIMA’s Mike Bittner via email at michael.bittner@ahima.org.
