How are we making sure this gets done right?
The Why, What, and How of Data Modernization
A key difference is that DMI is supported in ways no other strategy has been before. We are not doing this alone.
- Our public health partners, including “Data: Elemental to Health,” were instrumental in sounding the alarm on the state of public health data before COVID and they’re working with us now to get this done.
“Monitoring and evaluation seek to improve, not just prove.”
— M.Q. Patton
We are working alongside healthcare partners, including vendors, hospitals, and others across the private sector.
- We’ve also engaged with innovation partners across academia and research who are supporting and extending our work.
- We have first-ever Congressional support dedicated specifically to data modernization.
Our modernization work is informed by policies and strategies that reach across the federal government.
- On January 21, 2021, the President signed an executive order on Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats.
- The Evidence-Based Policymaking Act lays out new requirements for data sharing, linking, and privacy.
- The Federal Data Strategy asks us to take a hard look at the data lifecycle and to identify gaps that need to be closed to make the most of our data assets.
As part of our innovation process, we are engaging in rapid prototyping and real-world testing of new solutions.
- All solutions are informed by guardrails that are already in place, such as data standards and policies that impact how data can be collected and shared.
We have put internal structures in place at CDC that will assure and monitor progress.
- This includes a new approach to IT and data governance that enhances the approval of strategic and efficient IT and data investments.
As we make investments and build for the future state, we are monitoring and evaluating solutions using our strategic roadmap as a guide.
- This will help us see, as early and quickly as possible, the extent to which proposed solutions will be successful.
- It will also guide continuous improvements along the way.
Our evaluation framework measures the progress of each project toward the overall success of the Data Modernization Initiative.
- Specifically, we are tracking how solutions help coordinate people and systems, accelerate data for action, and support strategic innovation.
RESOURCES
- CDC and USDS: Innovation through Partnership – Explains how DMI will be advanced by a new multi-year collaboration between CDC and USDS, including reimagining the data flow, creating pandemic-ready tools, modernizing the hiring process, and implementing discovery sprints.
- Virtual Briefing: A Roadmap to 21st Century Public Health Data Infrastructure– This November 2020 briefing included testimony from experts, including CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat, on the need for sustained investments in modernization.
- Public Health Data Modernization: Listening Session on Real-World Testing of 21st Century Cures Act Requirements explores impending changes and what they mean for data standards and technologies
- 2020 Federal Data Strategy Action Plan
- Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act
- Executive Order on Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats | The White House