Using funding from the U.S. White House bailout plan, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) announces the creation of Public Health Informatics & amp; Technology Personnel Development Program (PHIT), aimed at strengthening public health informatics and data science in the United States.

As part of this launch, ONC is inviting colleges and universities, particularly colleges and universities for Blacks (HBCUs), tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), serving Asian Pacific Islanders and Native Americans. Institutions (AANAPISI) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) to apply for funding through a consortium that will develop curriculum, recruit and train participants, provide paid internship opportunities, and assist in employment with public health, public health agencies. – nonprofit organizations, the private sector, or public health-focused clinical institutions.

The PHIT Workforce Program aims to train more than 4,000 people over a four-year period using an interdisciplinary approach in public health informatics and technology. Under the PHIT Workforce Program, ONC will award up to $75 million to recipients of cooperative agreements and use the remaining $5 million to support overall program management. Federal officials said recipients of the award will need to ensure the sustainability of their training, certificate, degree and employment programs to create a continuous stream of diverse public health information technology professionals.

“The limited number of public health professionals trained in informatics and technology was one of the key challenges the country faced during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mickey Tripathi, PhD, national health information technology coordinator. “This new funding will help meet that need by supporting the efforts of minority-serving institutions and other colleges and universities across the country to train and engage people in public health careers.”

The announcement “supports the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to eradicate the pervasive health and socioeconomic disparities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and to ensure that our health system is better prepared for the next public health emergency,” according to federal health officials.

They also note that the pandemic has exposed gaps in public health reporting and data analysis, particularly with regard to race and ethnicity data. “Some of these gaps can be attributed to limited technological infrastructure and chronic underfunding of the personnel needed to support state and local public health data reporting,” they said.

Federal efforts to ensure equity in the response to COVID-19 and future public health responses “will be improved by reliably collecting and reporting infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths, and key health and social vulnerabilities that are disaggregated. by race and ethnicity, age, gender and other key parameters,” the officials said.

Indeed, the crisis has shown that there is simply not enough reliable data on race and ethnicity to enable health stakeholders to understand the underlying factors that contribute to disparities. For example, according to the recently launched Health Equity Tracker, 38% of COVID-19 cases reported unknown race and ethnicity.

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Utah ranks last in the nation for mental health access, according to a 2019 Gardner Institute report. Recognizing the challenge and impact of the pandemic on mental health, Intermountain Healthcare and community organizations are actively collaborating to address mental health issues in Utah. These initiatives include improved access and help for minorities.

According to a report by the Gardner Institute, the demand for mental health care in Utah is growing. Nearly one in five adults in Utah has poor mental health, and demand for services for youth is growing. Sixty percent of depressed Utah youth ages 12 to 17 have not received treatment for depression. In addition, funding for Utah’s state mental health system is split between different systems, making it difficult to consistently provide coordinated care.

In response, Intermountain Healthcare contributed $67.3 million in various contributions to support mental health projects that promote collaboration with nonprofit partners, community groups, and state and local governments to improve access to mental health and help low-income populations.

“The organizations and groups we partner with have been the heart and soul of our community,” said Mikel Moore, senior vice president and chief community health officer. “They have been advocates for many groups and minorities in Utah. We are very proud to work with them.”

Mental wellness has been a top priority for health care providers, especially as mental health problems have reached an all-time high since the COVID pandemic.

The state also has a high per capita suicide rate, ranking sixth in the nation. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Utah’s suicide rate (21.21 deaths) is higher than the national average (13.93 deaths).

The effects of COVID on mental health are serious, and the long-term effects are not yet fully understood. The Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health (DSAMH) continues to see a year-over-year increase in people seeking mental health services. DSAMH had the largest increase in telehealth services in the first quarter of 2020. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the number of clients using telehealth services increased from 234 to 14,006 per month. They set up Utah Disaster Emergency Services so they could deploy mental health and psychological counseling teams across the state.

“Mental and emotional health is essential to our overall health. We need to make sure we stay connected and support each other, and when we notice someone struggling, we reach out to help them get the care they need to live a healthy life in the community. The diverse organizations we partner with, plan and contract with to ensure we reach all Utahans in need are critical to that success.” – Doug Thomas, director of DSAMH Utah, stated.

One organization that has been a helpful resource for the LGBTQIA+ community is the Utah Pride Center, which received a major donation from Intermountain.

Like many other organizations, the Utah Pride Center moved all of their programs online last year. This change allowed them to provide mental health services to Utahns across the state, but treatment is still out of reach for many people because of financial obstacles.

To help provide affordable services and support the LGBTQIA+ community, Utah Pride Center’s mental health department offers many free support groups for adults and children.

Latino Behavioral Health Services (LBHS) received a grant from Intermountain to address mental health disparities among Latinos and Latinas in Utah. Unfortunately, this community is struggling to overcome barriers to mental health care. According to LBHS, from 2017 to 2019, the unmet need for mental health services increased by 63 percent among Latinos and 15 percent among non-Hispanics.

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Organizations that help meet patients’ needs for integrated care rely on strong community health care ecosystems and their ability to innovate during a pandemic. For example, the Camden, New Jersey-based provider coalition’s annual report details how COVID-19 tested the partnership and determined its future direction.

The organization’s basic model involves using health information exchange to identify patients with complex medical and social needs, meeting them in the hospital or community, and then ensuring that home and community care is managed and coordinated to help them meet their needs. own goals for health and well-being. The report says that almost every one of its programs has been modified in some way in response to the pandemic.

In her foreword to the 2020 annual report, Camden Coalition CEO Kathleen Noonan noted that in January 2020, the organization had just released the results of a randomized controlled trial examining the impact of its baseline model on re-hospitalizations. The main conclusion from that study was that no single program or organization can solve its patients’ complex care needs alone, she noted. Success in integrated care depends on a community coming together to bring systems together and form coordinated ecosystems of services.

“When we shared our analysis of the study results or when we released the 2019 annual report,” Building Strong Ecosystems,” we had no idea how critical strong ecosystems of care would be in 2020,” Noonan wrote. “The COVID-19 pandemic put all of our systems and partnerships to the test. Our failure as a country to invest in strong health care ecosystems means that people with complex health and social needs have been disproportionately affected not only by the virus itself, but also by the destruction it has caused to the systems they rely on to access health care. , food, transportation and housing.”

The report highlights the many ways the Camden Coalition worked with partners to address the needs of vulnerable populations affected by the pandemic:

• It worked with Camden County to provide medical supervision for people in quarantine at a designated hotel managed and operated locally by Volunteers of America-Delaware Valley (VOA-DV). The quarantine hotel in Camden County, like other hotels across the country, was designed to provide shelter and care for COVID-infected people who are homeless or otherwise unable to self-isolate. In addition to a COVID-19 diagnosis and lack of housing, most quarantined hotel residents had complex needs, including multiple chronic illnesses, substance use disorders, and mental health conditions. In many cases, their quarantined stay gave the Camden Coalition an opportunity to support VOA-DV supervisors in connecting hotel residents to services and supports that could improve their health and well-being after discharge.
• The Camden Coalition joined a number of local health care organizations to support the Camden County Health Department in opening COVID-19 testing centers in Camden. This ensured that anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 was screened for any social supports they might need, especially if they were required to self-segregate. He found widespread food insecurity among those tested and helped people get food assistance and other resources. In late 2020, he teamed up again with Camden County and Cooper University Healthcare to roll out a mobile testing plan. It provided a data infrastructure to locate sites, prioritizing local hot spots with high COVID-19 cases. The new mobile sites are located in public schools and immediately expanded access to testing for residents.
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