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Marcey Propp:
Thank you for listening to the HLN poster regarding our engagement with ASTHO for data modernization technical assistance. I am Marcy Propp, a Senior Project Manager with HLN and IIS domain lead, in tandem with my colleague, OSA Dahlberg Schmidt, three data modernization site visits were facilitated during the summer of 2024. The data modernization effort is intended to identify opportunities for improving public health systems, data, and workforce that lift up the agency as a whole and promote agency-wide collaboration.

ASTHO took a site visit approach focused on engaging a cross-functional team to identify the organizational structure needed to address data modernization challenges and sustain data modernization efforts over time. Scoping calls were held with each site to discuss their needs, expected outcomes, and identify people to attend the site visit. Workforce and legal representatives specifically were encouraged to attend due to data modernization’s goal of building both technology and workforce. As well as the impact data modernization might have on an agency’s policies, suggested attendees were capped at around 15 to promote effective group discussion, facilitate team exercises, and drive consensus on key issues. ASTHO encouraged the chief financial officers and senior deputies to attend, specifically the segments focused on fiscal management of the grants and sustainability of the program initiatives.

The site visits provided a forum for candid conversation of the agency’s data modernization efforts to date, sustainable funding, workforce, skill sets and gaps, staffing, and capacity to complete the data modernization work. The site visits yielded significant benefits in enabling the agencies to highlight and recognize their data modernization progress, and ensuring everyone heard consistent messaging regarding their data modernization vision and strategy. Overarching recommendations from the site visits encouraged agencies to consider data modernization as an umbrella for all data modernization activities in the agency, not only those that were initially identified as being part of the grants, developing a data modernization strategic vision that is broadly communicated across the agency, and managing the project’s activities and tasks to execute a data modernization plan will help create a foundation for modernizing public health data and data systems and establish a path forward for the agency.

Additional recommendations were categorized within nine domains, to include making the case for data modernization, organizational structure, program management and planning approach and strategy, change management and engagement, workforce, financial, data, strategy, and data governance and implementation. For more information about this particular engagement or HLN consulting, please
visit us at hln.com. Thank you.