On this page, you’ll find tools compiled or produced by the Common Health Coalition.

Where to start:

Connect health care leadership with local/state Health Department leadership (i.e., CMO level) to discuss mutual needs and benefits of this type of partnership. Develop an MOU to identify and clarify roles and responsibilities, and ensure secure sharing of information. Establish shared goals and metrics, and set up regular meetings to ensure both parties are getting what they need.

Exemplars:

• A Pledge to Improve Hoosiers’ Public Health Outcomes in Indiana: Health First Indiana (HFI) is a state initiative that transforms public health in Indiana. The Indiana Hospital Association is asking each of its member hospitals to join in pledging their support for state public health efforts in Indiana.
• Collaboration in Dallas: An MOU between Parkland Health and Dallas County Health and Human Services has enabled a focus on shared data using zip codes to provide social services support, concentrated clinical activities, targeted employee recruitment, and community investment with procurement using local vendors, among other benefits.
• Resource integration in Rural Areas: White River Rural Health Center in Arkansas oversees coordination of emergency planning and response with the Arkansas Department of Health and Woodruff County Office of Emergency Services. They have established a designated, centralized hub for provision of medical services and MOUs for supplies and staffing in an emergency.
• Uncommon partners in NYC: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partnered with health plans to pay for provider-initiated outreach for Covid-19 vaccine counseling for unvaccinated people through a program called the Vaccine Outreach and Counseling Program.
• Collaboration on CHNAs in Central Florida: The Central Florida Collaborative (CFC) brings together health care and public health agency partners across central Florida to create a shared Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) intended to meet a broad set of health and community needs.
• The Hawaii Healthcare Emergency Management Coalition: is a statewide federally qualified all hazards comprehensive emergency management healthcare coalition program. Partners include health care, emergency management, and public health organizations whose roles and responsibilities are defined via MOU or Memorandum of Understanding signed by each organization.
• Cross-sector partnership in Illinois: The Alliance for Health Equity is a partnership between the Illinois Public Health Institute, hospitals, health departments, and community organizations across Chicago and Cook County. The hospital-community partnership involves 30+ nonprofit and public hospitals, seven local health departments, and representatives of more than 100 community organizations serving on action teams that coordinate on CHA/CHIP and CHNA efforts. For example, the Alliance identified a number of unmet needs related to mental health, trauma, and social isolation, and these will drive policy and programs moving forward.
• Identifying and responding to misinformation in New York: New York public health leaders created a Misinformation Response Unit during COVID-19 to monitor messages containing dangerous misinformation presented on media platforms and then worked with clinical and community partners to provide culturally appropriate, scientifically accurate messages tailored for their audiences.

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Where to start:

Connect health care leadership with local/state health department and emergency management leadership about starting or joining existing collaborative work regarding preparedness. Health care partners should be prepared to speak to what types of information and resources – regardless of a federally or state-declared emergency – they are able to offer the public health and emergency management partners, and vice versa.

Exemplars:

• Centralized system for emergency communication in Alabama: During a public health emergency, the Alabama Incident Management System (AIMS) allows health centers, hospitals, and other health care organizations to track staff, facility status, bed availability, and supplies in real time. For example, if an emergency situation occurs that warrants the standing up of the State Incident Command System, an ambulance provider service may go to the AIMS website to post their available resources. ADPH uses this data to dispatch provider service ambulances.
• Strong medical assistance teams in California and Pennsylvania: California and Pennsylvania are among states that have robust state-wide Medical Assistance Teams that are separate from their Medical Reserve Corps units. The California Medical Assistance Teams have standardized categorizations and defined team typing. The PA teams are managed by the state Department of Health, while the CA teams are managed by the state Emergency Medical Services Authority.
• Advance payments from BCBS of Michigan and North Carolina: During the COVID-19 public health emergency, payers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and North Carolina, provided advance funding for health providers. BCBSM pulled forward $87 million in earned incentive payments to Michigan physicians to enable them to operate, purchase testing supplies, enhance treatment services for COVID-19 patients and expand telehealth services.

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Where to start:

Identify existing data gaps in health care and/or public health systems, and approach partners in these respective fields with a specific ask about the types of data needed and the mechanisms through which sharing is possible to meet mutual needs. Ensure DSAs contain explicit language about feedback loops and timing of data sharing, as well as specific roles and responsibilities for all parties. Solicit community-based organization input where possible, to ensure metrics, language, and resulting services are accurately and adequately represented.

Exemplars:

• CSTE highlights stories from across the country: CSTE’s Data Modernization Stories from the Field show transformations in health departments across the country that reduce manual processes, solve problems through innovation, and use data in new and exciting ways — equipping them to quickly offer impactful public health services that reduce threats and improve outcomes. These successes are worth celebrating, and we hope you feel inspired to borrow the brilliance for positive impacts in your jurisdiction and your work on coordinated nationwide efforts!
• Data sharing in California: The California Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) is a shared commitment between hospitals, physician organizations and medical groups, skilled nursing facilities, health plans and disability insurers, clinical laboratories, acute psychiatric hospitals, and other voluntary signatories to securely and appropriately share patient information.
• Data dashboards for public and clinician use in Texas: The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) created an interactive respiratory illness dashboard to be a resource for all Texans, including health care providers, local leaders, and public health jurisdictions to monitor respiratory illness trends.
• Breaking down data sharing barriers in Minnesota: The Minnesota EHR Consortium is a partnership of health care professionals, researchers, and leaders from Minnesota health systems and statewide health care that collaborates to study the epidemiology of conditions affecting Minnesotans, including health equity indicators related to COVID-19, substance use disorders, and other chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and hypertension.
• Using data to deploy clinician assistance in NYC: Clinicians in NYC received assistance from the Health Department via a “public health detailing” model, through which timely updates, materials, and access to technical assistance in NYC neighborhoods experiencing COVID-19 health inequities were provided.
• Test data sharing in Chicago: The Chicago metropolitan area created a shared COVID-19 test results data repository working with the region’s clinical reference laboratories to feed COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test data from clinical reference labs to a common repository by leveraging existing LIS (laboratory information systems) technologies.
• Embedding equity in data work in NYC: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene developed a collaborative model for how a local health department can reform data work to embed an equity lens.

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Where to start:

Health care partners should identify where and how they can implement eCR or other types of electronic reporting and what are the barriers to doing so. Bringing public health partners to the table during those discussions will ensure the information needed for population-based interventions are being collected and shared and will help identify areas where public health feedback of information to health care leaders or practitioners would be helpful for patient care and outcomes.

Exemplars:

• eCR implementation in Minnesota: When the Minnesota Department of Public Health participated in a multiorganizational effort to implement and automate eCR reporting for COVID-19, it reduced provider reporting burden and improved accuracy and efficiency of case data compared to other methods of reporting, such as phone and fax.
• Digital health facilitates more equitable care in LA: The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health — in partnership with Healthvana – piloted an innovative, digital treatment-dispensing model cost-free to the patient to address both inequitable access and the time-sensitive nature of COVID-19 medication prescriptions — in particular, oral antivirals such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid.
• Expanding PreManageED to Report to Public Health in Alameda County: Hospitals in Alameda County, California, use the PreManageED platform to facilitate care coordination for patients presenting to multiple EDs. This platform could be expanded to share data with public health.

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Where to start:

Health care, public health, and emergency management leaders within regions should establish relationships (if not already in place) ahead of health emergencies, and identify gaps in the standardization of preparedness across systems. Utilizing MOUs and/or DSAs, or other mechanisms to share information and resources, the partners can then work to identify and establish better cross-sector support in a standardized way.

Exemplars:

• Standardizing incident response across facilities and regions in California: Kaiser Permanente embarked upon a journey to standardize emergency response and research and deploy an incident response tool that will allow the organization to communicate effectively in an accurate and timely manner.
• Pathologists paving the way: The College of American Pathologists (CAP) Laboratory Accreditation Program is a reciprocal, peer-review program that utilizes inspection teams comprised of trained, currently practicing laboratory professionals to assess hospital laboratories on annually updated accreditation and compliance checklists. Inspection teams are carefully considered to ensure that hospitals receive inspectors from similarly sized hospital laboratories with comparable capabilities.
• Medical transport services peer review too: The Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS) and the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS) maintain similar peer assessment and accreditation programs for the air and ground medical transport industries.
• Preparing for and Rebuilding from a Natural Disaster in Kentucky: On Friday, December 10, 2021, the deadliest tornado outbreak on record, for the month of December, thundered across the southern United States, producing catastrophic damage. More than 15,000 buildings were destroyed. Up to 81 deaths, including 24 in Graves County, have been attributed to the surprising, late-season storm and the scene of a massive emergency response.
• Greater New York Hospital Association Symposium on “How Health Care Emergency Preparedness Has Changed Since the September 11 Attacks”: This 2021 event presented the history of health care preparedness over the past 20 years and a look at the path ahead — including needs for cybersecurity and novel virus threats. 
• A Self-Assessment Tool from the American College of Emergency Medicine Physicians (ACEP): This assessment tool was developed to assist hospitals in revising and updating existing disaster plans or in the development of new plans.

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Enhance health care’s impact on addressing Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and Health Related Social Needs (HRSN) by implementing actions such as those in the U.S. Playbook to Address Social Determinants of Health

• Statewide network connecting health care and social service providers in North Carolina: NCCARE360 is statewide network with a shared technology platform uniting health care and human service organizations. This network helps providers connect individuals and families with unmet social needs to community resources.
• Cross-sector partnerships in Seattle: The Seattle Indian Health Board connects thousands of Seattle-area residents to health and social services across the region. Funding from several foundations as well as from government is braided and blended to support the Board’s programs. One such program is the Gender-Based Violence programming that provides confidential services to individuals fleeing from or who are survivors of gender-based violence.
• Investment in SDOH in Oregon: Through Oregon’s SHARE initiative (Supporting Health for All through Reinvestment), coordinated care organizations (CCOs) must spend a portion of their net income on SDOH and equity efforts in their communities. Investments with community SDOH partners must be based on priorities in the CCO’s current Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), include a role in spending decisions for the CCO’s community advisory council (CAC), fit into one of four domains (economic stability, neighborhood and built environment, education, and social and community health), and address the Oregon Health Authority-designated Statewide priority (currently housing).

Bolster the national special pathogen system of care, as proposed by the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC)  

• RESPETCs played a critical role prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Through NETEC, a collaborative network of 10 Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (RESPTCs) undertook readiness activities that included potential respiratory pathogens. These preparations, which took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, established a foundation of readiness that enabled RESPTCs to play a pivotal role in the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic response.
• Regional centers in action: Regional centers launched into action during the Ebola outbreak of 2014. This report highlights the activities and approaches used during the response.
• NYC RESPTC leads timely, patient-centered response to the mpox outbreak: The RESPTC based out of NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue (NYC H+H/Bellevue), activated its Special Pathogen Program to triage and treat patients infected with mpox. Through collaboration across multiple departments within Bellevue, hospitals across the city, and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the RESPTC established shared protocols, based in trauma-informed care, for patient transportation, screening, testing, treatment, vaccination, inpatient care, and telehealth services.
• Multi-state RESPTC exemplars pave the way: Hospitals HHS/ASPR currently funds 13 Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (RESPTC) around the country. During the pandemic, these 13 hospitals cared for some of the most critically ill patients. The NETEC, together with representatives from the RESPTCs and other partners, developed a vision for a national special pathogen system of care; however, the limited number of hospitals and partners involved to date has made it difficult to garner support and develop a platform and a plan for national implementation.

Implement and invest in industry standard data interchange protocols with a focus on those identified by the CDC, ONC, CMS, or other federal partners (e.g., Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, FHIR® and United States Core Data for Interoperability)

• Implementing FHIR for value-based care: In fall 2023, Providence Health System – one of the largest U.S. health systems with 52 hospitals and more than 900 clinics across seven states – developed and implemented FHIR to support value-based care in partnership with Premera Blue Cross. This platform can be adopted by other providers to alleviate administrative and financial burdens of the transition to value-based care
• Chicago innovates with EHRs and Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) during COVID-19: Following a public health order mandating data submission by all acute care hospitals in Chicago, health care and public health experts came together to develop a technical infrastructure to combine multiple data feeds from those EHR systems— a regional data hub to enhance public health surveillance. A cloud-based environment was created that received ELR, consolidated clinical data architecture, and bed capacity data feeds from sites.
• PACER pilot augments eCR: The PACER (Public Health Automated Case Event Reporting) model supports targeted queries from public health to the appropriate healthcare system to collect relevant data to support public health case investigation and follow-up. The nonprofit Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) is coordinating this pilot.
• MENDS: Empowering public health with interoperable systems: Multi-state EHR-based Network for Disease (MENDS) aims to improve chronic disease surveillance and management through the use of electronic health records/health information systems. MENDS-on-FHIR demonstrates the ability to leverage OMOP common data model and FHIR standards for national chronic disease surveillance.
• Incorporation of FHIR into California’s eCR program: The California Reportable Disease Information Exchange – Electronic Case Reporting (CalREDIE eCR) module allows health care providers and organizations to more easily comply with the California Department of Public Health  requirement for the reporting of certain diseases and conditions. CalREDIE eCR replaces traditional paper-based methods of case reporting for many reportable conditions in jurisdictions using CalREDIE.

Implement the revised demographic data collection standards from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) once released as final in 2024

• AHIP calls for action on demographic data standards: To improve upon and harmonize existing demographic data standards, AHIP convened diverse groups of health insurance providers and other stakeholders to formulate and propose (via letter to HHS and OMB) demographic data standards and has continued to call for the federal government’s action on these standards to help decrease fragmentation across the health care sector.
• Oregon goes above and beyond federal standards: Oregon passed legislation in 2020 requiring health care providers to collect and report race, ethnicity, language, and disability data (REALD) from all health encounters for reportable COVID-19 conditions to the Oregon Health Authority (see February 2021 COVID-19 REALD report here). These granular Oregon REALD data standards go beyond federal data standards.

Participate in the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)

• TEFCA is expanding by adding QHINs: Qualified Health Information Networks™ (QHINs™) are health care organizations capable of nationwide health data exchange governed by the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM (TEFCASM).
• TEFCA’s potential benefits: One benefit of widespread TEFCA implementation for disease detection will be more seamless and bidirectional case reporting of communicable diseases and syndromic data – from emergency room data and beyond – enabling faster identification of emerging issues in our communities.

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