Jernigan was deputy director for public health science and surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the time, and he discussed lessons from the CDC’s 2019 data modernization initiative, including ongoing cloud migration successes.
Earlier this year, the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, an infection surveillance system, moved to Microsoft Azure cloud after more than a year of preparation. The migration allows for expanded reporting capabilities and an improved end-user experience.
As public health organizations look to better serve their communities with real-time data and ensure that these important systems are used by the experts who need access to them, these cloud migration projects will become standard in the sector.
Growing Public Health Needs
At the state level, Rachelle Boulton, health informatics program manager for the division of population health at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, shared in a July 2024 podcast interview how cloud technologies can address scalability issues in a public health emergency. During the pandemic, she said, the department’s previous system struggled to manage the large influx of people trying to access it.
“We ultimately had to move it to the cloud to solve that issue,” Boulton said. “Being able to move things to the cloud to utilize all of that new technology, scalability, improved security, better sharing of resources, more secure systems, being able to connect to the latest tools – cloud computing has huge benefits for us.”
EXPLORE: Here are five lessons learned from modernizing a public health database system.
Scaling seemed to be a common problem across the board, along with poor user experience.
One large federal health agency launched its modernization project because of the low adoption rate for its complex public health database system. End users noted that the database was too cumbersome for daily use, and lag times and nonstandard workflows exacerbated issues. Individual work-arounds also made it hard to deploy systemwide updates.
The agency’s cloud migration to Amazon Web Services involved detailed stakeholder buy-in so that the epidemiologists, case investigators and other public health professionals using the database had a say in its evolution, including adopting human-centered design.
Connecting the Dots to Improve Public Health
Public health data must be frequently updated and accessible to the professionals that require it to serve communities across the country.
Infection tracking is only one aspect of public health surveillance. Through its modernization initiative, the CDC also has programs to improve public health education through data, explore the impact of artificial intelligence on health equity and reduce data reporting burdens on healthcare organizations.
As public health agencies continue to transform the way they think about population health and the data required to address it, they’ll need the right infrastructure and tools to adapt to expanding demands and changing priorities.
