With funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), the Delaware School-Based Health Center (SBHC) Data Interoperability and Sharing Cooperative (DISCO) has connected a statewide network of school-based health centers (SBHCs) and myriad data sources to to create data interoperability solutions to address larger public health problems and concerns.
DISCO successfully aligns the Delaware SBHC strategic plan to the Apex School-Based Health Care Data Hub ecosystem using a phased approach of planning, onboarding, and implementing to address technical, procedural, and humanistic data interoperability challenges across the five uses cases that define the Data Hub:
- Establishing organizational and user access permissions governed by Business Associate Agreements and other data sharing agreements;
- Integrating existing data sources including from Electronic Health Records (EHRs);
- Collecting new information such as screening data on social determinants of health;
- Linking data at the most granular level feasible; and
- Producing reports for different audiences and purposes, including data visualizations.
This work includes assessing technical capabilities, forging on-the-ground relationships with providers, IT staff, and other data shareholders.
A major goal of the project has been to achieve interoperability between the Apex SBHC Data Hub and the data systems utilized by the Delaware SBHC sponsoring organizations. The project team is investigating and testing Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically, with the goal of creating more efficiency in data collection and management. FHIR leverages modern web technologies to enable efficient and secure data exchange between different healthcare systems. It acts as a common language for healthcare data, allowing systems to understand and share information regardless of how it’s stored internally.
An evaluation report produced evidence of impact and has helped us secure state-level funding to continue the work. See a case study from Apex’s evaluation partner, Jason Ravitz of Evaluation by Design, highlighting the benefits of Apex’s SBHC Data Hub solution in Delaware.
CASE STUDY