On today's PHIG Impact Report Ron Bialek from the Public Health Foundation talks about the biggest opportunities ahead for state and local agencies including the use of AI within operations work and performance management systems improvement.
As Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) funding moves into its later years, how can health departments maximize its impact? In today's PHIG Impact Report, Ron Bialek, president and CEO of the Public Health Foundation, talks about the biggest opportunities ahead for state and local agencies. Bialek highlights three key areas where PHIG investments can drive lasting improvement: responsibly integrating AI into public health operations, strengthening performance management systems to guide daily decision-making, and expanding partnerships between health departments and academic institutions.
Performance Improvement Consulting Services | PHF
Academic Health Department Learning Community | PHF
Performance Management Toolkit | PHF
JOHN SHEEHAN:
This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Tuesday, March 17, 2026. I'm John Sheehan with news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
On today's PHIG Impact Report, we'll speak with Ron Bialek, president and CEO of the Public Health Foundation, an extended technical assistance partner for PHIG. Based on experiences in supporting recipient health departments, Ron identifies three key areas where PHIG investments can drive lasting improvement: responsibly integrating AI into public health operations, strengthening performance management systems to guide daily decision-making, and expanding partnerships between health departments and academic institutions. Later, Ron will share how better data quality improvement practices and stronger collaborations can help health departments improve efficiency outcomes and long-term impact.
So, Ron, what do you see as some of the biggest opportunities for states, for agencies regarding PHIG funding moving into Year 4 and ahead of Year 5?
RON BIALEK:
Absolutely. You know, there are a couple of years left for PHIG. It's been an enormous help for the public health community and the communities being served, because that's why we do this work, it's to serve the communities. Some of the opportunities, I'd say, first, I'd say using AI appropriately and effectively is an unmet need that can be addressed in Years 4 or 5 of PHIG. There certainly are challenges and risks associated with AI, but there also are opportunities for these organizations. Just as an aside, we've actually developed a program page on our on our website called AI and Public Health that provides some articles, blog posts, some training to assist health departments in this AI journey, which is relatively new to a number of public health agencies. A second unmet need is leveraging relationships with academia. There's much potential here to develop strong, long-term, mutually-beneficial relationships, and in conducting some environmental scans with health departments, looking at the academic interests within their jurisdictions, we've often seen substantial alignment between what the health department's interests and needs are and what the academic institutions' needs are. In particular, training of new workers, current workers, service delivery, and research. Lastly, an unmet need that I believe we can focus on in Years 4 and 5 is using performance management and quality improvement to identify areas where improvements can be made quickly to help improve agency efficiency and performance. Many health departments have been trained in these areas. Now, it's time where we can spend on a daily basis again using what we've learned in performance management and quality improvement as part of our daily practices to drive long-term health department improvement in performance and outcomes. One last thing I'll mention about it is that with the data modernization initiative, we're seeing better data become available for our use in public health. With better data, our performance management systems, our quality improvement processes can work even better to achieve greater improvements in programs and outcomes. I think the opportunities are enormous.
SHEEHAN:
Talk to us a little bit more about performance management. What are we talking about, and how do these systems contribute to improvements overall in these PHIG-funded programs?
BIALEK:
What's key about performance management is the development of sound, reliable measures that are clear, that are concise, that are practical, that are achievable, and targets that can help to serve as a focus for what the health departments do. These systems that have been put into place that agencies are using, they've struggled for a while over finding the right measures, because that requires prioritizing, it requires looking at, do we even have the data to collect, do we have baselines, is what we're asking for in a measure truly measurable, does it fit with our strategic plan? Does it fit with what our policymakers and the public expect? So, performance management is a way to capture what one is trying to achieve, measure it, monitor it, and improve it along the way. Another thing that's key about performance management is it's not an annual report, it's not a quarterly report, it's an ongoing process. One should be using a performance management system on a daily basis, otherwise it can't possibly drive improvement of the organization.
SHEEHAN:
Yeah, once you know, sort of, what metrics you should be paying attention to, you can't unsee it. You have to keep going back to it.
BIALEK:
Absolutely. And one thing I failed to mention is the accountability piece. You know, we are accountable to the public, we're accountable to the policymakers, we're accountable to our entire community, the people who we serve. And one way to assure accountability and that we're doing what needs to be done is to measure it, to monitor it, and to improve it.
SHEEHAN:
And can you talk about the importance of academic health departments and what role they play in the overall public health system?
BIALEK:
Oh, absolutely, I always appreciate talking about the academic relationships, because they really are key to what we do in public health. So, about 15 years ago, we started what's called the Academic Health Department Learning Community, and we've seen many, many ways that these relationships are helping public health practice. For instance, building workforce capacity and capabilities, both temporarily and long-term. The temporary is through internships, in particular. Long-term is creating pathways for graduates of academic institutions to pursue careers in health departments. We also see this relationship helping the current workforce in that there are continuing education opportunities that continue to build skills, renew skills, and help professionals continue their growth. Other ways the relationships help to sustain and enhance public health services are by conducting joint research and practice-based research that focuses on community needs and ways to address and improve what we're doing in the work with communities, and lastly, funding. We've actually seen these relationships help health departments secure additional funds for the vital work that they do. A really nice example is a rural health department in North Carolina, Granville Vance Public Health. They are a rural health department, and they attribute obtaining $25 million in funding, grant funding, they attribute to the academic health department partnerships. That's nothing to sneeze at.
SHEEHAN:
That's real money.
BIALEK:
That's real money.
SHEEHAN:
And Ron, getting back to performance management and those systems for us, for a moment. Once departments have their performance management systems in place, can you give some advice on how agencies can close the gap between what they've sort of established as their targets for improvement versus what they're capable of doing? And if those two are far apart?
BIALEK:
You know, John, there are lots of aspirations that people have, and the first step that we've seen is having the attention to performance management. That's been really key, and you know, we've looked, worked with over 600 health departments over the past 15 years, and seen enormous progress, enormous improvements in state, tribal, local, and territorial health department work, and what they're able to achieve. Many health departments struggle with establishing meaningful and achievable measures; they sometimes focus, and often I should say, focus on the software, what to buy, what system to get in place from a technology standpoint, and skip the process, the human process of really digging deeply into measuring. So, one thing that can be done to fill the gap is to focus on the human part of performance management. And some ways that we actually do that is in working with the health department, we provide them with a series of Excel spreadsheets, relatively simple, they can use those for adding in their measures, for beginning the monitoring of those measures and using them to demonstrate that performance management can really work within their organization by providing the Excel spreadsheets and simplifying it and not going for the big expensive software. We help to focus on that human aspect of monitoring progress, driving improvements on an ongoing basis, and if one truly uses performance management, and I keep on saying the word ongoing basis, if they truly use it that way, we do see progress in meeting the goals and the objectives of the organization, and what the community wants and needs.
SHEEHAN:
Ron Bialek is president and CEO of the Public Health Foundation.
This has been another PHIG Impact Report, part of the Public Health Review Morning Edition. I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
