168: All-Star Tech Xpo Lineup Revealed

ROBERT JOHNSON:

This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, April 29th, 2022. I'm Robert Johnson.

Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

If you're thinking about ways to modernize the technology your department uses to deliver public health, ASTHO wants you to be part of its TechXpo event, set for May 10th and 11th online.

J.T. Lane is one of those working to bring an all-star lineup of tech professionals to the debate. He tells us what to expect during the event in today's morning conversation.

Tell us about some of the panels that are planned for the two-day event.

J.T. LANE:

We have a great lineup for both days. It's pretty exciting. I'll give you a few examples.

So, we're having an immersive conversation about the future of the public health data ecosystem starting at 12:15 on day two. In that, we're going to be talking about all of the challenges and opportunities for modernizing the nation's public health data ecosystem. And we are fortunate to have the national coordinator for health information technology Micky Tripathi, Dan Jernigan, who is the deputy director for public health science and surveillance, and Gail Christopher, who is the director of RWJF's national commission to transform public health data systems, to have a discussion moderated by our president-elect Anne Zink, who's the chief medical officer of Alaska. And so, that will be a very exciting conversation that's going to sort of set the stage for the program.

Another one is really around driving innovation and cultivating public private partnerships to sustain modernization. Modernization, as it does not have one end point, is going to be a journey that we need to continue to pursue and continue to evolve and transform our systems. So we're going to have: Jim St. Clair from the Linux Foundation Public Health; Brian Anderson, who's the chief digital position from MITRE; Dr. Umair Shah, who's the secretary of health of Washington state; and Jim Daniel, who's the lead for state and local public health for Amazon Web Services. And they're going to have a really great conversation about how we really innovate to make modernization a sustainable journey for public health.

And then finally, I'd point out that we're going to have a discussion that wraps up the last day of three really wonderful external experts to governmental public health to sort of have a conversation about, from the outside looking in, how do we envision this new future and what are the new outcomes we expect. So, we've got: Lena Sun, who is the national reporter on health with Washington Post; Reed Tuckson, who's the managing director for Tuckson Health Connections and president of the American Telehealth Association; and Stanley Campbell, the CEO of Eagle Force Health. And our CEO Mike Frasier will be moderating that conversation to really have is sort of an outsider perspective on what everyone can expect as we modernize over the next three to five years.

JOHNSON:

There's also a vendor exhibition. What do you like about that?

LANE:

This is really exciting.

So first off, it's the true diversity of the technology, data, consulting organizations and coalitions that we have is really wonderful. Over our more COVID-focused tech event last year, we actually have 14 new sponsors and vendors over last year. And so, the growth and the interest we've generated I think has been absolutely wonderful.

And all of these sponsors and vendors are coming with new solutions and new ideas that are going to be critical to helping health departments pursue and execute their data modernization activities and requirements, but also provide them new ideas and opportunities on how to improve health through technology in ways that we haven't been been able to do before.

JOHNSON:

Thanks to sponsors like Guidehouse Health and HLN Consulting. There is no charge to those with .gov, .edu, and .mil emails. Sign up using the link in the show notes.

A new resource to help public health agencies improve the way they share data across jurisdictional lines is available now.

Laura Pegram is director of drug user health at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.

LAURA PEGRAM:

Really trying to advise jurisdictions to be thinking through what types of data would actually feel useful to share—so, with a specific focus on people who use drugs, HIV, hepatitis—but increasingly other types of data that would feel useful to share: STI data, DIS data, information across borders.

JOHNSON:

Pegram explains the sort of challenges the report tries to solve using the Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland metro area as the example.

PEGRAM:

This is another space where D.C.'s really tiny and a lot of people live in Maryland, that live in Virginia, they work in D.C. They might get services or say get tested in D.C., and then we have to find a way to make sure we're not duplicating data, right?

That if you get tested, say, in D.C. and you go home to Maryland, that the Maryland Ryan White system of care—that you're engaged with that system, right? And we don't want D.C. wondering like, "What happened to you? Where'd you go?" We want to make sure that everyone's getting linked as efficiently as possible.

JOHNSON:

You can download a copy of the resource using the link in the show notes.

Some early childhood development programs suffered during the pandemic, but not all of them had problems serving their communities. You can find out how programs adjusted to meet pandemic obstacles in a new blog article now online. Look for the link in the show notes.

Finally, tomorrow is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. The goal is to get people to turn in their expired, unused, or unwanted prescription drugs. Drop-off sites are available across the country and are searchable using a link in the show notes. Consider sharing the link and news of the event in your agency social media today and tomorrow.

Before we go, we want to remind you to follow the show on your podcast app. And if you're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, we'd love a shout-out.

That'll do it for today's newscast. We are back Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information.

I'm Robert Johnson. You're listening to Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.