Spending bill includes $50 million for healthcare data initiative

PARCA eNews – Dec. 31, 2019 – Lost in all the other things going on in Washington, D.C. at the end of 2019 was the $1.4 Trillion spending package Congress passed and the president signed to fund the US Government through September 2020.

Included in the bill was $50 million for the first year of the Data: Elemental to Health Campaign, a multi-year initiative aimed at modernizing public health data systems, including surveillance and analytics at the CDC as well as state and local health departments.

The funding was supported by HIMSS, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems.

The Data: Elemental to Health campaign aims to improve public health surveillance, by funding development of 21st century data systems used to collect and track public health data by the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System, the secure national disease reporting system. The 10-year effort will also boost the agencies ability to track syndromes, case reports, and vital records.

Source: HIMSS News