Public Health, Disease Surveillance, and the Opportunity for Master Data Management

By Victor Chatain, PMP

In recent years, U.S. cities have had more than their share of disease outbreaks, including Swine Flu, Zika, Measles, and, more recently, COVID-19 and MonkeyPox. In 2014, NYC officials even reported a few Ebola virus cases, which sent news channels and citizens into a near-panic.

We now live in a world where the threat of infectious disease is constant and the roles of local and state Departments of Health are only more important in disease surveillance and coordinating efforts to control outbreaks. I’m not talking about fictional movie scientists in hazmat suits closing off neighborhoods but about the teams working tirelessly behind the scenes to deploy administrative processes and technologies to deliver on disease surveillance initiatives. 

One such technology requirement is an accurate, nationwide provider directory. A provider directory is an essential database that contains information about healthcare providers—their contact details, specialties, locations, organizations, etc. 

But why is a provider directory needed for public health?

1. First is case management and contact tracing. These are vital parts of disease surveillance, so departments can identify and isolate individuals who may have been exposed to a particular disease. Understanding their symptoms, demographics, and locations provides information about the healthcare providers treating these patients. 
   
   Having an accurate provider directory makes it easier to identify and contact the providers who may come in contact with infected patients or are responsible for following up with them. This helps contain the spread of the disease and allows providers to keep their community informed.

2. Provider directories are also critical to support provider communication. Accurate provider data enables the sharing of emergency preparedness protocols, disease management guidelines, and education material, which prepares healthcare providers for public health emergencies. 

So, why are State Departments of Health and Public Health Agencies struggling to keep provider data accurate? And why has CMS recently gotten involved? 

Because the system needs stronger Master Data Management. 

Many agencies and healthcare organizations maintain provider data files and struggle to keep the data updated across multiple spreadsheets and databases. There is typically no central provider directory or system that is the source of truth for all healthcare organizations or disease surveillance agencies and comprehensive enough to include every provider and organization statewide.

In 2022, there were 576,693 active physicians nationwide, not to mention other clinicians allied to the field—each with different phone, fax, and digital endpoints to keep up-to-date.  Public Health departments would need an army to keep all of the data accurate.

This is where careMESH comes in and why we support several government and public health agencies. Our Master Data Management approach and HL7® FHIR® architecture are specially designed to organize the chaos: providers, organizations, locations, contact information, and healthcare services are all cross-referenced into a single source of truth that can be integrated with any system. 

By incorporating the right directory architecture to drive ad-hoc and system integration use cases, Public Health benefits from more accurate and current data to:

• Reduce burden on public health bureaus

• Ensure appropriate user access permissions and data sharing

• Deploy efficient emergency responses and communication

And achieve the primary goal for all of us: better outcomes for our citizens.

We’d love to talk about your data challenges, so drop us an email anytime.

Victor