1. National Health Information Infrastructure July 22, 2004 The Values and Benefits of Participation in “Connections” a Community of Practice for Integrating Child Health Information Systems: Rhode Island’s KIDSNET Experience Amy Zimmerman, MPH Chief, Office of Children's Preventive Services Division of Family Health Rhode Island Department of Health KIDSNET

2. What is KIDSNET? Integrated Child Health Information System Contains data from nine public health programs Creates a child profile Used by health care providers, schools, headstarts, Health department programs etc. KIDSNET

3. What is AKC and Connections? All Kids Count (AKC)-RWJ program to foster the development of information systems that improve children’s health 1992-2000: Immunization registries (grant-based) 2000-2003: Integrate multiple preventive child health information systems (Community of Practice: “Connections”) Administered by the Public Health Informatics Institute KIDSNET

4. What is the purpose of Connections? Create a peer to peer learning community Assist participants move their own integration project along Create a shared vision of for integrated preventive health information systems KIDSNET

5. Who participated in Connections? Departments of Health: Iowa, Michigan, Maine, Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah City or County Departments of Health: New York City,Santa Clara Other Projects: Kansas Integrated Public Health System, CalOptima (Medicaid organization) Consultants and other Government Agencies (HRSA, CDC) KIDSNET

6. How was Connections Structured? Site Visits Group Project Conference calls Electronic conferencing Informal: e-mail, attending other meetings Electronic Documentation & Website KIDSNET

7. What was the overall value of belonging to Connections? Valued relationships (professional and personal) Safe, trusted and honest environment Mutual support, increased motivation Increased credibility with own stakeholders Leveraged to promote own project at home Site visits “Learning from those who have been there took half a year off our own project” KIDSNET

8. What was the value to RI of belonging to Connections? Adopted and improved upon bar-coding method from Oregon Leveraged NYC’s experience with vendor Enhance staff training & morale during site visit Leveraged participation internally/externally “There’s leverage that can be gained to be able to say: we were part of this selected group” KIDSNET

9. What was the value to others of belonging to Connections? UT visited NYC own own to assess some middle ware MO keyed in on deduplications issues after NYC and RI site visit NYC trying to model UT’s semaless interface with InterMountain Health Care EMR KIDSNET

10. Contact Information Amy Zimmerman MPH Chief Office of Children’s Preventive Services Rhode Island Department of Health 3 Capitol Hill Providence RI, 02908 (401)-222-5942 amyz@doh.state.ri.us KIDSNET