The Use of Public Health Grid Technology in the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention H1N1 Pandemic Response

Historically in public health surveillance systems have been designed and operated as registries targeting specific health issues. These systems included data from specifically targeted segments of the population, with data elements designed to answer specific programmatic questions. The result has been a collection of silo information systems that rarely can be used to address new needs without extensive revision, rework, or redesign. This decreases the opportunities for cross communication between programmatic areas, and limits the ability of public health professionals to examine issues that cross traditional programmatic boundaries. Emerging public health threats often require the coordination of stakeholders from different areas of public health practice. 2009 H1N1 influenza provided a similar challenge. In order to avoid the problems of silo information systems, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) and its partners began exploring and developing research for de-centralized information architecture through a Public Health Grid (PHGrid). Through systems research and the exploration of PHGrid capabilities, the CDC was able to develop a pilot project that enabled secure and timely exchange of information across multiple programmatic areas. This paper describes the process and results for the pilot project.